Drink Up, Me Hearties
by Tinn Tam
Summary: When Harry and Hermione's visit to Godric's Hollow goes terribly wrong, they escape into a parallel world where greed and rancor rekindle an old war for the mastery of the sea. And it so happens someone they thought dead crossed too, long before they did.
1. The Green Flash

A/N: So yeah. I'm officially crazy for writing this. It's one of my whims, no more than one of the millions godawful plotbunnies hopping about in my painted-green mind, the immense majority of which I usually let wither and die. No idea why I started writing this particular one; maybe I just needed a break from the HP fandom. That or a straitjacket.

* * *

** Drink Up, Me Hearties  
**

* * *

**1 - The Green Flash**

_Drink up, me 'earties yo ho,_

_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me…_

The deep, rasping voice was barely audible over the water lapping at the wooden hull and the soft whispering of the wind in the rigging. Sitting at the stern, one folded arm resting on the helm, the singer nonchalantly swung a leg back and forth, his eyes fixed on the black waters beyond the rail. The velvety Caribbean night stretched over his head, the breeze was fresh and smelled salty, and the usual shouts and talks accompanying the comings and goings of the sailors on the deck at daytime had quietened. Most of the crew was fast asleep, and the other man on watch stood in silence at the bow, out of the singer's sight.

_We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot…_

The sailor's eyes swept the deserted deck again, to halt on an immobile white form curled up against the rail, lying half on the deck and half on a roll of rope. It was probably the kid they had picked up the day before, on the island where they stored the rum. Although island was a big word to denote this spit of land half-covered in skinny palm trees; there was no visible spring, no food, except a few seagulls, just sand, heat, and the ocean spreading as far as the eye could see. It was of no use, except to the rum runners who stored there their forbidden merchandise.

How the kid had found himself on their island, no one could tell. They had been busy loading the boat with the boxes of rum when they had seen him, stumbling out of the meagre shadow offered by the palm trees and onto the beach, a hand lifted to his brow to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting on the white sand. He had looked odd, dressed in a too-tight, opened white shirt that stuck to his sweaty back, and his legs wrapped in breeches made of some coarse blue material. He was bare-foot, but carried in his left hand a pair of leather shoes.

They asked how he got there; he didn't know. They asked his name, he gave them one: Potter. He didn't look much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. The captain, who was a good man, all the crew agreed on that, had accepted to take the kid on board as long as he would work to pay for being taken back to land.

The kid had accepted, and he had worked hard and without complaining, all day long. The weirdest part was, he obviously knew the basics of navigation, but still looked as if he had never set foot on a boat in his life. Once or twice he had even asked what part of the world they were in, and what year it was. The heat had probably gone to his head already.

_We're devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs…  
_

Potter stirred, and the helmsman reflexively lowered his voice; poor kid had spent hours running from stern to bow and climbing the rigging, and he didn't look much used to working so hard in this heat. Better let him sleep.

_Drink up, me 'earties yo ho…_

The old pirate song mingled with the rumbling of the ocean as the rum runners' _Albatross_ silently cut through the waves towards the nearest port.

They reached Tortuga around noon the following day; a couple of tall ships already peopled the bay, along with countless boats and dinghies swinging lazily with the softened swell. The sight put the sailors of the _Albatross _in a good mood: two large crews, plus many other stranded pirates and unemployed ruffians, would make the cargo disappear quickly — there was good business ahead.

The _Albatross_ cast anchor near the landing stage, and most of the crew left to spend the day in town. All day, men approached the captain of the _Albatross_, the rum was bargained, deals were clinched. At sunset, the men were back to carry the goods from one boat to several others.

The boxes of rum were to be unloaded from the _Albatross_ and into the dinghies sent by the buyers. The merchandise was heavy and difficult to handle, and the sailors swore and grunted as they heaved the boxes from the hold to the deck, where they were piled into nests that were hauled overboard and down into the small boats.

Among them, the thin black-haired man they had picked up on their way back worked mechanically, without a sound, although he obviously wasn't strong enough for the job. He was slower than the others and the way he squinted and hesitated betrayed his poor eyesight. On several occasions he was at the receiving end of a furious volley of curse words, but he never seemed to hear them; he persisted, his eyes dull, his face devoid of expression.

The benefits made were the best in a long time. Almost all the cargo had been sold, and the remaining bottles would easily find a buyer in town, during the night or the day after. The captain was put in such a good mood that he generously gave his crew two boxes of rum, to share and enjoy for themselves; and the sailors were laughing and cheering as they made their way back to shore, where they would be enjoying themselves for the rest of the night.

The only people remaining on the _Albatross_ were the captain, the two men on watch and the Potter kid.

The captain spotted the latter as he was about to go to land himself. The boy was slumped against the rail, seemingly lost in thought; his fine shirt was torn and greyed by salt, sweat and filth, his breeches were rolled up to mid-calf, revealing his bare feet. The captain hesitated for a second, then made his way to where the young man sat.

"Mr. Potter."

Potter's head snapped to the right as the captain's voice shook him out of his reverie.

"Captain," he said in mere acknowledgement, then fell silent again.

"We're leaving again tomorrow," the captain gruffly said. "If you want to leave the ship, you have to do it tonight. "

The boy nodded and tiredly got to his feet, wincing as he did so — the evening's work had probably left him aching all over. The captain beckoned him as he walked up to the starboard rail, where a 

footbridge had been thrown between the low boat and the landing stage, and both men left the _Albatross _together.

"Thank you," Potter said as they reached shore. "For saving my life, I mean."

"Wasn't going to let you die on that island, was I?" the captain grumbled. "I'm no pirate. I'm just a tradesman. You paid for the trip, you're free to go, that's the end of it. Here."

The captain picked a stout bottle of rum from his belt and shoved it into Potter's hand.

"All I can do for you," he said by way of an explanation.

And without a further word, he turned his back on Potter and disappeared into the tortuous streets of the pirate town, which slowly awakened with the end of the day.

Potter watched him go. Long after he had lost sight of the captain's silhouette in the colourful crowd filling the streets of Tortuga, he stood there in silence, in the shadow of the _Albatross'_s hull, with her lonely watchman singing the same old pirate song. When he finally moved, his gestures were slow, as if he was lost in a dream of his own.

He reached into his pocket and took out a small bundle of white cloth and a slender piece of wood. Sliding the stick into the waistband of his breeches, he unwrapped the cloth, which revealed to be a torn sleeve of his shirt enveloping a pair of square glasses. He unfolded the glasses with a practiced gesture of his hand and placed them on his nose.

Then, without a backward glance, he set off.

He followed the shore until he was out of the small town. From there, a dirt track led him into an uneven country of small, rocky hills, covered in a thin layer of earth and short grass. On his right, the sea was turning black under the darkening sky, except for the horizon where the ocean and the sky met in pastel tones of pink and blue. His head was bent and his eyes cast to the ground though, and he did not pay attention to the last remains of the day.

Small rocks rolled under his feet. The wind ruffled his short black hair. Around him the landscape changed, the ground gradually rising into wind-beaten cliffs, and the air soon filled with the low rumbling of waves crashing upon the rocks, fifty feet below the path he was following. Night was falling fast, the first stars already lighting up over his head. And still he kept walking.

He finally bumped into a rock that had been sticking out in the middle of the path, completely invisible in the thickening darkness. He sucked in a sharp breath as pain shot through his bare foot and hopped on one leg for a few seconds, then quickly lost his balance and fell in a graceless heap in the short grass.

He began to straighten up in a sitting position, before abandoning the idea and lying back on the ground with a dismissive sigh.

"That must've looked really dignified," he muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the black sky, now spangled with stars much brighter than those he was used to seeing.

He had a feeble laugh, which suddenly caught in his throat as if it had constricted without warning. He swallowed and blinked, but the lump in his throat wouldn't go away. Aboard the _Albatross_ he had found oblivion in the cheap rum and hard work; but now that he was alone again, lying motionless on top of a cliff, the same questions came back in force to haunt him, the same old anguish clenched around his insides like an iron fist.

How had he got there? How had he found himself on this island, thousands of miles from his country and hundreds of years from his time? He belonged to another place — another era — and most of all, _he ought to be dead._

The door had burst open. He had seen the intruder through the glassy panes of the living room door, had recognised Voldemort's bestial profile. He had sprinted into the hallway, screaming at his wife to get their son and flee while there was still time. But he had been wrong, they had never had any time.

His eyes had met Voldemort's lidless red ones, burning in a chalk-white face that only looked remotely human. A smile had stretched the livid lips, a white, long-fingered hand had pointed a wand at him.

The first lethal green flash had flown under his extended arm, missing him by inches. He then had backed off, his hand groping blindly behind him on the pedestal table at the entrance of the living room — his fingers had curled around the wand he had left there — but of course, there hadn't been any time. The second green flash had rocketed at him, too fast for him to dodge.

During what should have been the last second of his life, his murderer had been laughing.

Then the green spell had hit — _had_ it hit him? He was no longer sure. It should have. All he could tell was that there had been a loud tearing sound, he had received a blow in the middle of his chest that had thrown him backward, then his vision had blurred in a kaleidoscope of colours.

He remembered thinking, "So that's what death is like?"

One second later he had landed heavily on a beach of white sand, bordered by the crystalline waters of a seemingly endless ocean. His wand had still been clutched in his hand. His shirt was still stained with the baby food his one-year-old son had playfully thrown at him at dinner, maybe two minutes before Voldemort had broken down their door. He was in the exact same state as he had been before the second green flash had hit him; but he was stranded on an island of the Caribbean sea.

It had been sunset when Voldemort had crossed his threshold. It had been sunrise when he had scrambled to his feet mere minutes later, incredulous, uncomprehending, in this world that was not his own.

An image flashed before his eyes — his wife's lovely face, pale and panic-stricken, her green eyes widening in horror as she, too, recognised who had broken into their home. _Lily. _

What had become of her? Had she managed to flee with their baby boy? But no — there hadn't been any time. Had she followed him? He had waited on the island, hoping wildly to see her join him in this strange world, which he wasn't sure was real. But the day had gone without any sign of her. A second day had followed. Heat and thirst had dried out his body and numbed his brain. Then the _Albatross _had rescued him.

She hadn't had any time.

They were probably both dead by now, not that he was sure _he_ was still alive. His spirit could have wandered into an odd dream, while his body was already cold in the real world; then maybe Lily and little Harry were having dreams of their own. He could have been magically thrown into an alternate realm of some sort — the existence of parallel universes being one of the oldest and wildest theories in History of Magic. He couldn't be sure of anything.

But what he knew, what he knew for certain, without being able to tell where his conviction came from, was that they were both out of his reach. He knew for certain that he had failed them.

James Potter blinked as his vision blurred again. Tears swelled and burnt his eyes, his poor eyes dried and hurt by several days of blinding light and hot winds. He let them run along his temples and lose themselves in his tangled, messy, filthy hair. His breathing was even, no sob came to wreck his aching body. There were just the tears, searing hot in his eyes, cool and soothing against his skin.

At the east, on the other side of Tortuga's island, the moon rose.

* * *

The chill of the night woke him. The breeze had grown stronger and colder, it pierced his tattered shirt and froze him to his bones. Shivering, James rolled onto his side and curled into a ball, rubbing his arm in a fruitless attempt to warm himself up.

His motion was accompanied by an odd chinking sound, and a small weight awkwardly settled against his hip, drawing his attention to his belt. He curiously reached down and felt the cool, smooth form of a bottle, tied to his belt with another tatter of his shirt wrapped around its neck. He traced the curves of it with hesitant fingers, wondering where on earth he had acquired a bottle that was, from the sound of it, full to the brim — before he suddenly remembered the gift from the captain of the _Albatross._

James sat up and fumbled with the piece of rag for a few seconds, his fingers numb and clumsy from the cold. The bottle of rum came free at last, and after a second's hesitation, he uncorked it and lifted it to his lips.

The first gulp made him wince. The alcohol was cheap but strong, and he didn't like the taste at all. It hardly mattered, though: he knew that, with a few more gulps, the rum would have warmed him up — in fact, when he would have reached that state, the difficulty would be to _stop _drinking_._

He looked round pensively as he drank from the bottle again. The night was clear; the moving waves shimmered silver in the moonlight, while the island was all but an indistinct dark mass covering the ocean like an ugly scab; even the distant lights of Tortuga had now faded. James lifted his head and stared at the moon, an old companion of his teenage escapades, not so long ago. He only needed to glance at it to know that it was two nights before it was full.

He had never liked the moon; he found it sinister. A dead planet reluctantly diffusing a cold, avaricious glow. The moonlight, far from embellishing anything, looked like a shroud thrown over the Earth's face. The old anxiety and restlessness he always felt at night seeped into his chest and James shivered again, while his free hand automatically clenched on the wand tucked in his waistband.

He drew the wand and held it close to his face, scrutinizing it intently. The livid luminescence drained the mahogany of its usual warm colour, giving it the pallor of a desiccated bone, but what worried James was that his wand felt as dead in his hand as it looked. The hum of magic usually coming from it, so familiar that he had long stopped paying any attention to it, had been conspicuously absent ever since he had stumbled into this world.

He flicked the wand, but it didn't work any better than when he had tried, countless times, on the rum runners' island. He was unarmed. Powerless. Worse: he was deprived of the one thing that made him what he was, and without which he wasn't sure he could survive. Panic tightened on James' temples; the night was too dark, the moon too bleak, the air too cold, his sorrow and loneliness too crushing.

"_Incendio!"_ he called in a slightly hoarse voice as he blindly jabbed his wand at shapeless shadows, desperate for a little light, a little warmth — a little magic.

The crackling of a fire answered him.

James' heart leapt in his chest and he looked frantically around, not daring think the sound was real. It could have well been a figment of his imagination, for he was sure the spell hadn't worked, his wand had remained as imperturbable as before; but it had sounded so _close,_ not further than — there it was again!

James took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down and think rationally. He got to his feet and slowly turned his head this way and that, scanning the distant town, the ocean, the cliffs… and then he saw it; a flickering glow on a cliff's vertical face, that seemed to come from a fire lit on the beach below.

James merely hesitated for a fraction of second before he set off towards the cliff, his steps cautious, all his senses alert. He was aware that whoever had lit up a fire in a creek remote from any form of civilisation on the island, and at the darkest hour of the night, might not have the best intentions in the world; yet the dancing fire was too appealing for him to stay away. He crept on, his eyes fixed on his objective, like a moth irresistibly drawn towards the light.

He soon reached the edge of the cliff and, silently lowering himself to the ground, ventured a glance downwards at the source of the light. Tall dancing flames drew long and sinuous shapes on the jagged faces of the cliffs delimiting a tiny creek, hardly more than a narrow band of sand between black rocks covered in shells and seaweed. A small boat lay on its belly on one side of the creek, the waves rushing forward to lick its flanks, a pair of oars abandoned inside the hull.

The owner of the boat stood by the large fire lit on the dry sand.

They were between James and the fire, their back to him, so that James could only just distinguish a dark silhouette. It was a man, not very tall nor broad in the shoulder, but not one to be called slight either — perhaps it was due to the way he held himself, with the kind of rigid immobility that is seen in a wildcat getting ready to attack; perhaps it was the sinister fashion the hilt of his sword glinted in the firelight. From what James could see, the man was dressed like any sailor he had worked with on the _Albatross,_ and wore his hair long under his hat.

James settled more comfortably on the top of the cliff, lying on his stomach in such a way that it would be near-impossible for the strange sailor to spot him, and resumed his watch. The sailor kept his gaze fixed on the ocean, straight in front of him, and although he remained still James noticed the drumming of his fingers on the hilt of the sword, betraying his impatience — or nervousness.

James wondered, with a kind of detached curiosity, what he was waiting for — the delivery of stolen goods? Why do such a thing here, in the treacherous waters of this narrow and rocky creek, when Tortuga's port was open to any thief and smuggler willing to do business? Could he be expecting other people, maybe ex-convicts or outlaws on the run? But again, why here? Ex-convicts and outlaws made up the majority of Tortuga's inhabitants; they would be safe to meet anywhere in the pirate town. Was he trying to cause a shipwreck, by guiding a ship to these dangerous waters with his blazing fire? But no — this only occurred when a raging tempest threatened to drown ships, and the sea was calm tonight…

As if in answer to his last thoughts, a deep, ominous rumble suddenly came from the ocean, sounding like a faraway tidal wave rushing to the shore. The sailor visibly tensed; James instinctively gathered himself in a crouching position, from which it would be easier to leap up and run.

Something burst out of the ocean, not fifty yards from the cliffs, breaking so abruptly the water's surface that both James and the long-haired man started in shock. James first thought of a huge marine animal coming to the surface, but the next moments proved him wrong in the most absurd way possible.

A bowsprit rose out of the water, followed by a figurehead, a full bow — then a foremast, a forecastle, an entire _warship_, shooting up from the depths of the ocean. Incredulous, James stared at the water cascading from the main deck and the two gun decks, at the broad sails flapping in the night breeze, and at the human forms bustling about on the shrouds, yards and deck.

At the foot of the cliff where James crouched, the unknown sailor had walked round the fire and now stood next to his boat, one hand clenched on the edge of the small hull, as if readying himself to push it into the sea; but his eyes were still scrutinising the spot where the warship finished hauling itself out of the water, obviously expecting something else.

"As if a freaking ship being spat out of the ocean wasn't enough," James muttered with a disbelieving shake of his head.

He had not stopped talking when the deep rumble sounded again, as the water just at the ship's stern started bubbling and foaming; and for the first time, James spotted a long, thick rope tied to the bulwark of the poop deck and plunging into the midst of the foaming water, tense as a bowstring. It looked as if the warship, her sails swollen with the night wind as she strained to move forward, was towing something right out of the sea.

And indeed she was. Minutes after the first warship had burst out of the waves, the waters parted again behind her to give way to a second bowsprit, to which the other end of the rope was solidly tied — another ship.

The waiting man pushed with both hands on the small boat, forcing it backwards into the sea, then hastily climbed inside and seized the oars. He started rowing towards the spot where the second ship was being hauled out of the ocean. James, noting the man was facing the beach as he rowed away from it, instinctively shrunk a little further in the darkness, moving sideways slightly so as to get a better view of the second ship without being spotted by any of the crew scuttling about on both decks.

She was more slender than the first, and in proportion to her size, her taller masts looked able to bear an astonishing amount of canvas. She was also more graceful, with a lithe beauty that was indubitably feminine, although her two gun decks made her look almost as fierce as the ship that had hoisted her to the surface. Men — or creatures that looked humanoid, at least from James' viewpoint — were busying themselves on her main decks and yards with mysterious tasks. Not far from them, the sailor's small boat was dancing with the waves, its occupant sitting unoccupied on the bench, staring and waiting once more.

James was getting cold again, and he took a gulp from the bottle of rum, feeling warmth come back to him along with a slight dizzy spell. He grimaced; he had never been much of a drinker, and getting wasted didn't sound like such a good idea when standing at the edge a fifty-foot high cliff, in full sight of two warships with supernatural powers. He regretfully corked up the bottle again and put it away, settling for stretching and rubbing his limbs that were numb from the cold and immobility.

James returned his attention to the two ships. It seemed magic did exist in this world, after all; a different kind of magic than the one he was used to, obviously — but still, there _were_ supernatural forces at work. He didn't know whether to feel scared or relieved. He couldn't use his own powers here, obviously, which made him all the more vulnerable to people able of handling magic; but on the other hand magic was something he knew and believed in, even when it took such a strange form — it was familiar, in a way, like a wink from his own world. He stared hard at the two ships, fascinated; he had to learn what kind of power had pulled them from the bottom of the ocean. Maybe if he understood it, he would be able to master some of it.

And if he managed to use magic again, maybe he would be able to go back home.

For a long time, James remained there, watching. Most of the crew was now on the second ship, where they had been joined by the lone sailor who had lit the fire in the creek, and it looked to James as if they were getting the ship ready for Merlin knew what.

The stars were paling by the time they stopped working, and from experience James could tell the sun would rise in less than an hour. The sailors went back to the first warship, some moving along the rope extended between both ships with monkeys' agility, others getting down into small boats. Only two men remained on the more slender ship, standing on the poop deck, apparently in deep conversation. One of them appeared to have curiously thick hair and beard, which glistened in the fading moonlight as if it was made of some wet and rubbery substance. He soon turned away from his interlocutor and limped down the ship into a boat waiting for him.

The rope linking both ships was severed, the sails of the first ship spread out again and swelled with the fresh morning breeze, and she departed, sailing away towards the still-darkened horizon.

Only remained behind the second ship and her lone sailor.

James slowly crept back until he was out of sight from the ship, then got to his feet and made his way back towards Tortuga.

* * *

Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow. Jack Sparrow, Captain of the _Wicked Wench…_ No, not the _Wicked Wench _— the _Wench_ had been the property of Beckett, of the East India Trading Company, a property merely commissioned to privateer Jack Sparrow before being sunk to the bottom of the ocean in a moment of rage by Beckett himself. Who, incidentally, had also had Jack branded as a pirate the very same day. The man had apparently not approved of the use Jack had made of his ship.

No, the _Wench,_ Beckett's ship, was gone. This ship was Jack's — he had sold his own soul to Davy Jones, the feared, immortal captain of the _Flying Dutchman,_ to have her refloated. The _Wicked Wench _had been her name during her first life, as she sailed under the colours of the East India Trading Co. For her second life, where she would sail for no one but her own captain, she needed a new name.

Jack Sparrow ran a hand along the smooth wood of the round helm, a smile grazing his face, then let his gaze wander around his resurrected ship — the decks, the bulwarks, the masts, all painted black; and the black sails folded and tied to the black yards, waiting to be spread out and to carry the ship wherever the winds would take her. A black ship.

The _Black Pearl._

Jack's smile widened, showing white teeth in his suntanned face, and his dark eyes sparkled with pure joy. Jack Sparrow, Captain of the _Black Pearl_.

Now all he needed was a crew, and the _Pearl_ would sail again and take him to the confines of the world.

Jack crawled down the flank of his ship and into the humble dinghy that had carried him from the small creek, where he had watched Davy Jones haul up the _Black Pearl_ back to the surface. He hoisted a small mast that lay at the bottom of the dinghy and spread out the tiny sail, then skilfully directed the boat around the huge _Pearl_ that slowly revolved around her anchor.

He was heading for Tortuga; he would find the men he needed there.

By noon the same day, he had gathered enough strong men to crew the _Black Pearl_ and form a decent fighting force — always needed on a pirate ship. He knew his new first mate from reputation; Hector Barbossa was said to be a fine sailor and an uncommonly skilled fighter, not to mention greedy enough so that the prospect of the fabulous treasure Jack had spoken of had convinced him to accept the young captain's offer. On the whole, Jack was rather pleased with his choices.

All he had to do now was wait for sundown. Then he would get six of his men back to the _Pearl, _and the seven of them would lead the ship into Tortuga's harbour, where the goods they needed and the rest of his crew would be able to board. Then they would be gone after the legendary Aztec treasure, the location of which Jack was the only one to know...

Jack ambled idly on the pontoons, lost in dreams of riches and freedom. He started making his way towards his small boat, with half a mind to get back on the _Pearl_ and check once again if Davy Jones' crew hadn't damaged anything while refloating the ship — he didn't trust much the creatures-like sailors of the _Flying Dutchman._

He stopped dead when he saw a man sitting on the pontoon, at the precise spot where he had moored his boat — in fact the man had swung both legs inside the dinghy, and was most likely about to steal it from him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, man," Jack drawled as he got closer, a hand on the butt of his pistol.

The stranger froze and threw him a look over his shoulder. Jack casually withdrew his pistol from his belt and cocked it, making sure it was in the thief's field of vision; and to his satisfaction, the man swung his legs back on the pontoon and got to his feet with a weary sigh.

"I wasn't going to steal it," he said.

Jack's eyes narrowed as he noted the British accent in the man's voice. At first sight he looked completely harmless — slight of build, filthy, unshaved, obviously tired, unarmed and covered in rags. His bloodshot eyes gleamed dully behind spectacles of a shape Jack had never seen before, and which made him look completely incongruous, even a bit silly.

But he was British, and young — probably a couple of years younger than Jack himself— and looked healthy. That was enough to make Jack wary.

"Not gonna steal it, eh?" he repeated, without lowering his pistol. "What were you doin' in it then?"

"Just checking it was the same boat I saw on the other side of the island this morning," the man answered evenly.

Jack tensed. Had the kid seen the _Pearl? _Worse, had he seen the _Flying Dutchman_ drag her out?

"Depends what side of the island you're talkin' about," Jack said in the same neutral tone the stranger was using.

The kid's lips curled into a smile. "The side where there's a warship at anchor, maybe?"

Jack licked his lips, his gaze locked on the man's face. He didn't look the slightest bit afraid.

"No one ever told you it was dangerous to talk about some things here?" Jack said, lowering his voice.

"I don't talk much. I listen mostly."

"Yeah? Hear interesting things?"

"Well, not half an hour ago, I heard you were looking for a crew, and wanted to go in search of a lost treasure." The man smiled, showing his teeth. "Dangerous to talk about some things in a tavern. You never know who hides behind a pillar."

Jack replied with a smile of his own, lifting his pistol a little higher so that it was pointed at the man's belly. "That's what you heard, huh?" he drawled. "Anything else?"

"That your name was Sparrow. That you had thirty crewmen already. That you wanted to take off at sundown for an island that cannot be found, except by those who already know where it is." The man calmly stared straight into Jack's eyes, ignoring completely the weapon pointed at his guts. "That _you_ knew where it was."

"So you wait here," Jack said, a steely edge to his voice. "And when I show up, you're tellin' me you know everything about my plans and my ship. If you wanna commit suicide, there are easier ways, boy, ones that won't cost me a bullet."

"I don't want you to kill me," the kid answered, imperturbable as ever. "I want you to hire me."

Jack blinked, taken aback. In some remote part of his brain he was admiring the kid's nerve; any other pirate would have run his sword through him by now. The thing was, Jack was not any other pirate — mostly because he had a functional brain and a good deal of sang-froid. In fact, he was thinking of the kid's offer; he knew of Jack's plans, which was never a good thing, so Jack would have to make sure he didn't spread the word any further. One solution was to kill him; the other was, in fact, to hire him.

"You talked 'bout that to anyone else?" he asked.

"No."

"Why would I believe you?" Jack challenged.

The boy shrugged. "I give you my word of honour."

There were some men whom you could trust when they gave you their words; and this kid looked like one of them, even though Jack wasn't enough of a fool to take anyone's word of honour as proof anyway. However, if he had blabbered about the _Black Pearl_, it didn't make much of a difference unless someone actually stole the ship; in which case he would personally cut the boy's throat.

Either way, Jack had to go back to the _Pearl,_ and quick; if one person had seen it, despite its remote location, others could. And if was safer to keep the kid within reach at all times for now.

Jack came to a decision. "Ever been aboard a ship?" he asked brusquely.

The boy's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Once," he said.

"Once is enough. What can you do?"

"Anything I'm taught. I'm a quick learner. I'm not scared of heights. I'm fast."

"Can you fight?" Jack shot at him.

"With a sword, a bit," the young man said with a slight hesitation. "I learnt, years ago. With some practice it should come back."

"You're not the best candidate in the world, are ya?" Jack said. "I don't want a dead weight on me ship."

"I won't be," the man firmly said. "I can learn to do anything."

"Can you?" Jack narrowed his eyes, staring hard at the man standing in front of him. "Why d'you wanna get on the ship so bad, anyway?"

"I own nothing at all. I have nothing to lose; everything to win."

He had said it simply, a man stating a fact; and actually, Jack couldn't think of a better reason why a man would want to be a part of a dangerous expedition like the one he was planning. He didn't let his feelings show on his face, though, and settled instead for asking, "What's your name?"

"James Potter."

"We already have a Potter. You'll be just Jim. Get rid of these glasses things on your nose, get yourself a decent shirt and a pair of breeches, and be ready to board at sundown," Jack shortly ordered. "Talk about the trip to anyone and I'll cut your tongue off."

Upon these words he put his pistol away, turned his back on his new sailor, and strode away.

All matters considered, he rather liked that Potter kid.

* * *

The _Black Pearl _left during the night, silent and invisible in the darkness. The men were talking excitedly among themselves of the treasure they'd been promised equal shares of. Captain Sparrow was at the helm, a thin smile on his face, while the first mate Barbossa walked up and down the main deck, barking orders at the crewmen.

Standing on the highest yard of the main mast, James stared out at the black ocean rolling under the stars. The wind whipped his face, the air smelled like salt, and as far as his eye could see there was nothing but an endless sea under an endless sky.

He was a sailor aboard the _Black Pearl._

* * *


	2. A Few Ashes

A/N: Well, I had already written it so there's no point in waiting before posting it. Next update should come soonish as well -- I just have to revise what I've already written. Enjoy.

* * *

** Drink Up, Me Hearties **

* * *

**2 – A Few Ashes**

**Sixteen Years, One Month and Twenty-One Days Later**

This Christmas Eve was as cold, clear and snowy as one could wish. Stars winked cheerfully in a pitch-black sky, and in their pale glow, the untouched snow capping the cottages looked almost blue. Carols rose from the old, squat church standing on one side of the square of the village; warm light poured from the windows of most houses and drew squares of gold in their snow-covered gardens; smoke escaping the chimneys talked of crackling fires flooding the houses with comfortable heat.

It was a merry, familiar sight, in front of which it was difficult to believe in the existence of grief, violence and unexplained events. Nestled in the immaculately white English countryside, Godric's Hollow was a pretty postcard.

And yet, at the very edge of the village, just out of the circle of warmth, light and singing, a ruined cottage sat in its neglected garden. Most of the first floor had been blown apart, leaving the house open to the cold and bad weather; ivy had crept up the walls that remained upright. The snow clung to a waist-high grass, and the twisted trunk of a dead apple tree stood near the hedge, which had long ago grown into wild, tangled bushes.

An arm appeared out of nowhere — just an arm, thick and clad in a greyish woollen sleeve, with no visible body behind it — and reached for the old rusty gate closing the garden of the ruined house. The large hand emerging from the grey sleeve was bare, in spite of the cold, and ended in thick and square-tipped fingers; it grasped the gate and held it tightly, but did not try to push it open.

A female voice sounded in the chill of the December night, though no one was to be seen.

"You're not going to go inside? It looks unsafe, it might — oh, Harry, look!"

Just as the hand had clenched around the old gate, a sign had shot straight out of the frozen ground of the garden, and the golden letters carved into the wood formed the words:

_On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,_

_Lily and James Potter lost their lives._

_Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse._

_This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family._

The inscription was surrounded by initials, names, and small messages addressing the orphan whose parents had perished there over sixteen years ago. The same female voice sounded again after a few seconds of silence, louder and higher-pitched in indignation.

"They shouldn't have written on the sign!"

A rumbling basso answered her, its owner as invisible as she was. "It's brilliant. I'm glad they did."

The wool-covered arm resolutely pushed on the gate, and soon it was followed by a shoulder, a torso, then the full body of a middle-aged balding man, who slid into existence as if a cloth was slipping off him. The man entered the garden, ignoring the shocked "Harry!" sounding behind him, and made his way through the tall frosted grass to the threshold of the devastated cottage. His eyes were wide and wondering, his plain face expressing a violent, almost painful emotion as he cast his gaze around him.

"_Harry!"_

A small and mousy woman sprang into being on the other side of the gate, where the arm had first appeared, and she hastened inside the garden on the balding man's heels, folding as she did so a long silvery Cloak over her arm.

"Harry, I really don't think we should—"

"Just for a short while," the man distractedly interrupted. "It won't hurt."

And directing the tip of a wooden wand to the lock of the front door, he whispered a word; the door opened with a click.

The woman threw around her a half-exasperated, half-scared glance, but the area was empty, except for an old woman who slowly walked down the road with her shoulders hunched and her head turned down to the snow-covered ground. The mousy woman bit her lip.

"All right, let's get in, then, but be careful—"

It was then she realised her companion had already disappeared inside the cottage. Muttering furiously, she grudgingly crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.

"_Lumos,"_ she whispered, and a ray of golden light fell from her own wand, enabling her to glimpse at a narrow hallway, its walls covered in a paper that had probably been yellow once — the colours had now faded into a dirty white, stained with trickles of filthy water and humid spots.

"Harry?"

"Careful, Hermione, there are shards of glass all over the floor."

Harry's voice seemed to be coming from a room opening on the right side of the hallway. Hermione shivered, her breath coming out in puffs of vapour before her face, then gathered her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and decidedly walked on.

The door leading into what she guessed was the living room used to have large panes of glass; but those had been shattered, which explained the large quantity of broken glass littering the floor. She carefully pushed the old, damaged door, which noisily swung on its hinges to let her in.

Harry stood motionless in the middle of the living room. Hermione kept her eyes fixed on him, not wanting to look round the room and catch sight of spoiled remains of furniture and trinkets, and other witnesses of James and Lily Potter's cut-short lives; it was too personal. She felt out of place and indiscreet, as if she was intruding in Harry's intimacy, in his pain, in the first conscious moment he spent in his parents' house. If they weren't in such danger, if it wasn't vital that they should stay together at all times during their mission, she would have offered to wait for him outside.

"He probably died here," Harry pensively said.

Hermione swallowed a lump in her throat. Her eyes were prickling with tears, and she furiously blinked them back. "Your dad?" she asked in a small, barely audible voice.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I don't think he had much time to do anything, or he would've fought him off. Driven him away."

Hermione nodded, privately thinking that the chances that James would have been able to stand up to Voldemort were painfully slim, no matter the circumstances. They were talking about the most powerful Dark Wizard in the world, after all.

"My mother died upstairs," Harry went on. "That's where the spell backfired and destroyed the house."

Hermione shot him a suspicious look, then glanced at the crumbling staircase leading from the living room up to the first floor.

"Harry," she began cautiously, in her gentlest voice, "maybe you shouldn't try going upstairs. That staircase looks like it's about to collapse. It's dangerous."

Harry didn't seem to be listening. His eyes were cast downwards and he looked lost in thoughts.

"I'm so, so sorry," Hermione whispered, drawing closer to him. "Harry — I begin to think I might never see my parents again, but I had them with me all my life, and I know I have no idea how you must be feeling right now. I know you need to spend some time here, but there is something we have to do first. We have to get out, Harry. I promise we'll come back, but now, we need to find—"

Harry held up a hand to silence her; he was staring down at the floor between them, a faintly puzzled look on his features. Hermione fell quiet and mechanically followed the direction of his gaze, but it was a few seconds before she spotted what Harry was looking at.

There was a little heap of what looked like ashes on the ground, piled in a perfectly conic mound, as if someone had just poured them there with a pitcher. As they watched, a little wind seeped into the room through the loose panes of the window and blew gently around the room, sending dust billowing in lazy whirls across the floor. But the heap of ashes remained completely undisturbed. It was as if it was encased in glass or ice.

"What do you think that is?" Harry murmured.

"I have no idea," Hermione breathed. "I've never seen anything like that."

Harry appeared to be thinking for a minute or so, a frown on his face, his hand absently rubbing the broad chin of the Muggle he was impersonating.

"Think someone could have put it here… as a, I don't know, monument?" he said at last.

"A… monument?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe that's where they found his body," he said in a carefully neutral tone. "Right here."

Hermione mulled it over for a short while.

"Maybe," she said slowly. "Although… We saw the statue on the square, and the sign in the garden… _They_ make sense, I mean, that's what you'd expect from people wanting to pay tribute to your parents… But — a pile of ashes?"

"I know… That's odd. But then I don't see wh—"

Harry abruptly fell silent and his head whipped around in alarm, his hand flying to the wand he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans. Hermione opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but the words died on her lips as she heard the front door creaking again, in the darkened hallway.

A pair of feet shuffled across the floor of the hallway, glass tinkling as they passed, and drew slowly closer to the living room. Hermione met Harry's eyes and he wordlessly jerked his head towards the wall. She nodded and walked as quietly as she could to one side of the door, flattening herself against the peeling wall, doing her best to control her suddenly quickening breathing; Harry just as silently crept to the other side of the door, his wand at the ready.

The intruder halted on the threshold, just outside of Hermione's field of vision. Her hands were clammy and her heart hammered wildly in her chest. She ground her teeth and gripped her wand more tightly, meeting Harry's gaze again with a questioning glance; he shook his head very slightly and raised his own wand.

The hunchbacked form of the little old lady Hermione had seen earlier walking down the street dragged her feet into the living room, without doing so much as glancing in her or Harry's direction. Only when she had walked past them did she slowly turn around, peering up at the pair of them from under the shawl wrapped around her head.

Harry lowered his wand, hiding it behind his back, but didn't put it away. Hermione's first thought was that he was being overly cautious when dealing with a tiny Muggle old woman — then she realised that the woman couldn't be Muggle, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to enter the magically-concealed house.

And being a witch, she could also have assumed this old and frail appearance to hide her identity — just as they had done.

"Can we help you?" Hermione said.

The old woman briefly glanced at her before focusing again on Harry, staring intently at him as if she was trying to tell him something without resorting to words. Hermione stole a look at her best friend's face and saw he was frowning pensively, his own eyes fixed on the old lady's stooped figure.

"Are you Bathilda?" he asked, so suddenly Hermione couldn't repress a start of surprise.

The woman nodded.

Hermione felt her eyes widening. Could she had been waiting for them all along? Had she seen them from her own house, then followed them to the Potter cottage?

"Do you have something for me?" Harry asked again.

Bathilda nodded again, then turned away from them to shuffle her feet across the floor, to the crumbling fireplace encased in the opposite wall.

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance. "You think she hid it here?" Hermione whispered.

"That's possible, isn't it?" Harry said in a low voice. "No one would think of looking for it in these old ruins."

"We follow her then?"

Harry shook his head, the balding Muggle's face set in a grim expression. "_I _follow her. Keep your wand at the ready, and watch my back."

Hermione swallowed and nodded, then went back to her position next to the door, tapping her wand nervously against the damp wallpaper.

The old woman stared at Hermione, then at Harry, then shook her head. She pointed at Hermione and made a shooing gesture with her hand.

"Harry? I don't think she wants me to stay in the room."

Harry grimaced. "Maybe she was told to give it to me alone," he said, his tone slightly apologetic.

"Probably," Hermione replied. She was surprised at how dry she sounded; if truth be told, she would have expected Dumbledore to tell Bathilda to trust her. The old woman's less-than-polite shooing gesture was a bit humiliating, as well.

"Think you can wait in the hallway?" Harry asked.

Bathilda had another impatient motion of her gloved hand.

"Yeah, fine," Hermione mumbled. She turned her back on them and slipped out of the room and into the hallway.

She leant on the wall, her arms crossed so as to keep herself as warm as possible. It seemed that their trip to Godric's Hollow would not be fruitless, in the end. She should have been pleased; however, the old Bathilda made her deeply uncomfortable. They had no way to verify her identity. All they knew for sure was that she was magical, although she hadn't even used her wand to light her way in the dark house, and that she had come for Harry specifically.

Of course, it made sense that she should have waited for him, with the sword Dumbledore had entrusted her with — if Hermione's theory proved accurate, that was —, and thus had been able to tell it was him despite the Muggle disguise. How she had seen through the Polyjuice, Hermione did not know, but then again this was an old friend of Dumbledore's… Maybe he had given her a way to tell whenever Harry was near; or maybe she had powers Hermione had never heard of. In any case, she looked nothing like a Death Eater — a Death Eater would have killed them on the spot, had they recognised them the way Bathilda had.

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to relax. She was getting paranoid, what with their constant precautions and changing location, not to mention she had been tense and down-spirited ever since Ron had left. There was no reason to panic. Everything was going to be fine. Everything would be all right.

Harry screamed in the next room, and something broke with a deafening noise.

"Harry?" Hermione called, her heart going into frantic activity once again as her chest tightened with panic. She ran blindly into the living room, shouting _"Lumos!"_ as she went.

Her wandlight fell on Harry, who was thrashing on the floor under the monstrous shape of a huge snake, the coils of its scaly body covering his torso and stomach and pinning him to the floor. His wand lay several feet from him in a pool of debris of broken wood and glass, apparently the remains of an old coffee table. Bathilda was nowhere to be seen.

The snake raised its ugly triangular head and focused on her; Hermione froze, her eyes widening as she took in the sheer size of the beast, and it lunged forwards just as she managed to gather her wits and shout out a curse. She dived to the side, her spell shattering a window, missing the snake by a foot at least. She tried again right as it closed on her, and it reeled back, merely disorientated by her Stunner. She saw Harry raise his own wand from behind the snake — then his face twisted in sudden agony and he slapped a hand to his forehead.

"He's coming!" he yelled. "Hermione, _he's coming!_"

Hermione screamed in terror as the snake flung itself at Harry, who managed to dodge the attack and run to her. He seized her arm and roughly dragged her to her feet, his face chalk-white with pain and fear — but the snake was between them and the door, and before either of them had the time to do more than raise their wands again, it was upon them.

Hermione's world dissolved into a sea of cold, metallic scales, of heavy coils constricting her chest and arms and legs until she could barely move, barely breathe, of hissing sounds that covered her own gasps and cries, and sounded oddly like wicked laughter…

"That's good, Nagini. Very good."

And suddenly, the pressure on Hermione's body lifted and she fell to the dusty ground.

Hands grabbed her upper arms and pulled her to her feet, and she found herself standing next to Harry, his grip almost painful on her arms. His face was still livid and he was staring at something over her head, towards the door leading back into the hallway.

Hermione turned her head and met Voldemort's scarlet eyes. He was smiling.

She had never seen him before. His face was ghostly white and flat, without any of the usual reliefs drawn on human faces by the nose, chin and eyebrows. Two oblique slits served as a nose, his lips were so thin and pale that they just as well could have been inexistent, and his blood-red eyes were slightly sunken, giving them the look of two rubies gleaming into normally empty holes. He caught her looking and stared right into her eyes, his lips stretching into a broader smile. Hermione heard a pitiful whimper coming out of her own throat.

Laughter rang all around her, and she didn't need to look round to know that at least three or four Death Eaters had arrived at the house with Voldemort, while Nagini was holding them down. She shrunk a little and felt Harry's arm snake around her waist and tighten there, holding her close.

"Harry," Voldemort lazily said. "You picked a good place to die. So many _memories."_

Hermione could hear her best friend's heavy breathing, could feel him shaking slightly in fear or rage, but he didn't reply. Voldemort cast a look around and addressed the room at large.

"Here, exactly, died James Potter," he said with mocking solemnity. "After a heated duel that lasted at _least_ two seconds."

The Death Eaters laughed again, and this time Hermione was sure it was rage that made Harry tighten his hold on her, to the point where he was hurting her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her flank. She covered his wrist with her hand and squeezed gently.

"It's touching how history repeats itself," Voldemort drawled. "His father died standing, too. And I don't doubt sweet MudBlood Lily would have stood by his side, just as Harry's girlfriend is now, if she hadn't been trying to run for her life…"

Next to her ear, Harry sucked in a breath that hissed past his teeth. She saw him glance down briefly at Voldemort's feet — where she noticed for the first time their two wands, abandoned on the floor and out of their reach.

"Let her go," Harry said in the balding Muggle's basso. "She's of no use to you, she doesn't know anything. Let her go, and I won't fight."

"Whether you fight or not is of little importance to me, Harry," Voldemort said softly. "Take the time to appreciate your situation. You're wandless, and you stand in the place where I _obliterated_ your father… Oh, did anyone think of telling you there wasn't so much as a finger left of him to bury? I should have taken you to the graveyard for a visit; we could have opened their coffins, so that you could see for yourself that the only thing you have for a father is an empty box."

"You're lying," Harry said in a very, very low voice.

Voldemort's smile widened. "If that can be of any comfort to you," he drawled. "I suggest you say goodbye, Harry. I don't have all night to spend in this rat hole, and Nagini is hungry."

The snake, who had been drawing circles in the dust all around them, echoed Voldemort's words with a long drawn-out hiss. Harry clenched his jaw — and Hermione, seeing Voldemort raise his wand, suddenly realised her life was about to end — that it was all over. She looked away from Voldemort's face, not wanting it to be the last thing she saw, and dropped her gaze to the floor.

She just had the time to notice they were standing over the little mound of solid ashes, before Voldemort shouted, _"Avada Kedavra!"_

Green flashed across her vision; she felt Harry stagger backward as if he had been violently pushed, and she reflexively tightened her grip on him, circling his waist with both arms to hold him to her. In a single, slow second, she was able to glance over his shoulder behind him — and there she saw the air being torn in half, with a great ripping sound, as if everything that was behind Harry was only a décor of papier-mâché, being shredded by an invisible hand in order to show her the reality behind. White light poured out of the tear in a great flash, blinding her, and she screamed.

Then she was falling, falling, falling, endlessly, faster and faster; colours swirled before her eyes with nauseating speed; the only fixed point around her was Harry's body, and she clung to it with all her might.

They landed brutally, on a mercifully soft surface, but before Hermione could disentangle herself from Harry's body there was a great rushing sound and a wave of salty water covered them both. She struggled, arms and legs flapping around wildly, and found herself being helplessly dragged across the ground by the retreating wave — until a hand closed around her elbow and forcibly hauled her out of the water. Hermione's face broke the surface and she sucked in an avid breath, coughing out the water she had swallowed.

"Easy, Hermione," said a breathless voice next to her. "You're not going to drown, there are barely five inches of water."

Hermione blinked before noticing that, indeed, the wave had almost completely retreated, leaving her sitting in a small pool of water, on the damp border of a beach of white sand. Harry was crouching next to her, trying to catch his breath; the balding Muggle's face had morphed back into his own.

Hermione's first reaction was to fling herself at him and hug him as tightly as she could. He let out a choked cry and struggled to keep his balance.

"S-Sorry," Hermione said as she released him, half-sobbing and half-laughing. "I just… I thought you were… I… Harry, _where _are we?"

Harry laboriously scrambled to his feet and offered her a hand. She took it.

"Now that," Harry said as he pulled her to her feet, "is an excellent question."

They stood on one side of what looked more like a large sandbank than an actual island. A handful of palm trees grew on the white sand, in the middle of the island, and a couple of seagulls could be heard there, calling to each other in their strident voices. All around them the sea stretched turquoise under a fresh, bright blue sky. It was sometime in the middle of morning.

It was also very, very hot.

Hermione got rid of her coat, shawl and jumper, then crouched down to unlace her shoes. Next to her, Harry did the same, and they both dragged their two-heavy clothes and shoes up the beach and under the palm trees.

"Well, that… could've gone worse, I suppose," Harry mused, looking round at the idyllic beach and sea.

"I suppose," Hermione echoed. A disturbing thought had been nagging her for a few minutes now, but she didn't quite know how to voice it.

"Harry… Do you think this is… That we're—"

"We're not dead," Harry interrupted.

Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him. "How can you be so sure?" she asked. "Voldemort killed us, didn't he? He cast the Avada—"

"I was hit by the curse. Not you," Harry replied, dropping to the ground and reclining against the trunk of a palm tree. "Since you're definitely not dead, and that we're both in the same place and able to talk to each other, I think I can safely say we're both alive."

"So you think we've been transported all the way from Godric's Hollow to — here?" Hermione asked, unable to keep her scepticism from her voice. "Voldemort's curse would have magically opened a gate to… to…" She trailed away as a thought struck her.

"Hermione?"

She raised a hand to shut him up as she followed her train of thoughts. The odd-looking pile of ashes… The fact that James Potter's body had never been found… The tear in reality she had seen opening behind Harry… This was _mad,_ yet she couldn't see any other explanation…

"I think," she slowly said, "that's exactly what happened."

"Oh, thank you, that is maddeningly helpful."

"Look," Hermione started, superbly ignoring what he had just said. "Your father's body was never found—"

"What are you talking about? Voldemort was lying. He was trying to get to me," Harry flatly countered.

Hermione fell silent. This was not going to be easy. In fact, it would be getting really difficult in about one minute. With a resigned sigh, she sat back against a palm tree and brought her knees up, circling them with her arms. Harry was still staring at her, his eyebrows raised in a questioning expression. She couldn't hold his gaze and looked away, towards the sea.

"Several months ago, I was reading my Encyclopaedia of Spells," she said, her tone as neutral as she could make it. "I came across the chapter about the Avada Kedavra. You were mentioned in it, of course, since you're the only one who ever survived it. But it also said something pretty odd."

She took a deep breath. "Most victims drop dead when they are hit by the Avada Kedavra," she went on. "But a handful of them simply vanished. They were annihilated, their bodies were never found. The authors of the Encyclopaedia made a list of those who reacted that way — there are about twenty in as many centuries. Your father was the last name on the list."

Silence answered her. She chanced a sideways glance at Harry; he had apparently frozen in the act of gathering a few fallen palms at the foot of his palm tree, and although he was not looking at her, keeping his face set in an unreadable mask, she could tell he was listening intently.

"I didn't tell you because I was afraid it would hurt you even more, and for nothing," she gently said. "But that's not all — the book said that, whenever someone vanished that way, a small pile of dust was found where they had been."

"The ashes," Harry muttered. Hermione nodded.

"We were standing precisely where your father was hit by Voldemort's curse," she said. "Precisely where he vanished, in fact. What if… Harry, what if your parents' living room was a gate between our world and this place? And that this gate could be opened by an Avada Kedavra?"

"The other people," Harry said. "You said there were twenty of them. They all died in Godric's Hollow?"

"No… Different locations, scattered a bit all over the world. But it might just mean there are several gates."

"Yeah…" Harry picked up a handful of sand and let it spill between his fingers and run back to the ground, where it piled up in a white, glistening mound. "It might."

Hermione watched him in silence for a few moments, but he didn't speak, nor did he turn to look at her. She leant her head against the palm tree and sighed softly, closing her eyes for a minute. Now that there was no life-threatening situation to distract her, she could feel her whole body aching from the struggle against the snake; also, it was probably one in the morning by her internal clock, and she had slept little the previous night. The pleasantly warm air was coiling around her like a light, comfortable cocoon. There would be no harm in resting for a little while. Just close her eyes a couple of minutes.

She woke up in the late afternoon. The heat was no longer comfortable; it had grown stifling, and clung to her like a heavy blanket. The back of her neck in particular was soaked with sweat, and the first thing she did was tie up her hair in a high ponytail. After that she proceeded to roll up her sleeves and the legs of her jeans as far up as she could, and only then did she notice that Harry was nowhere to be seen.

Hermione's heart accelerated brusquely in panic. _Calm down,_ she told herself._ The island is tiny, he can't have gone very far. I'm going to find him._

Still, she wasn't feeling exactly calm as she strode towards the beach, her steps hurried, containing her urge to break into a run and scream Harry's name at the top of her lungs.

"Harry?" she called. He wasn't on the beach where they had first landed. She began walking round the island, doing her best to be methodical. "Harry!"

"Here!"

Hermione froze in surprise and looked wildly around.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" she yelled.

"Not far," he answered, sounding much more amused than he should. "I'm swimming!"

Hermione whirled towards the sea. His voice seemed to be coming from ahead of her, where a few big rocks thrown haphazardly at the edge of the beach blocked her vision. She spotted his shirt and trousers bundled up on one of the rocks.

Hermione rolled her eyes and made her way to the rocks.

"Hey!" Harry's indignant voice stopped her dead as she was about to step around the rocks to see where he was. "Stay where you are, will you? And turn around. I'm coming out."

Hermione snorted and complied. Behind her, Harry was getting out of the water with great splashing sounds, then she heard him fumbling with his clothes and cursing in a low voice as he struggled with his jeans.

"Can I turn back now?" she asked patiently.

Harry grunted what she supposed was a word of assent, and she turned to face him. His jeans had been rolled up the way hers were, and he was now pulling his shirt over his head and onto his chest, where it clung immediately to his wet skin.

"I don't know what I'd give for a towel," he sighed, shifting the fabric of his jeans over one knee. He had apparently put them on over still-drenched legs; Hermione winced in sympathy.

"You should've let the sun dry you," she said.

"Not much sun left to dry anything," Harry pointed out. "Even if it's still bloody hot."

"How was the water?"

"Good. It helped with the heat, at least."

Hermione nodded. Now that Harry was mentioning it, the sight of the turquoise water glittering in the late-afternoon sun made her thirst twice as bad. She licked her dry lips and tried to ignore it, along with the low rumbling of her empty stomach.

"That's nice," she said, forcing herself to smile at him as they walked back to the shelter of the palm trees.

"Yeah, that's something," Harry said without smiling back. "Because otherwise I have pretty bad news for us."

Hermione halted and raised an enquiring eyebrow at him.

"I explored the island a bit while you were asleep. There's no spring on it. I swam around it for a bit, and I never saw a single boat on the sea." Harry inhaled deeply. "We're stuck here without food and without water. And without wands."


	3. The Ship With Two Captains

* * *

** Drink Up, Me Hearties **

* * *

**3 – The Ship With Two Captains **

The night was hard. Their heavy, too-large clothes turned out to be an excellent protection against the cold wind that rose soon after the moon, but as seconds ticked by on Harry's wristwatch, he could feel his hunger growing into monstrous proportions, until the merely distracting grumbling of his stomach turned into painful cramps. The thirst was the worst, though. He couldn't stop running his tongue over his dry lips, and his throat felt as if it was made out of cardboard. Only his extreme tiredness enabled him to get a few hours of disturbed, uncomfortable sleep.

The following day, their thirst became an obsession. In an attempt to distract himself from his cruel need of water, Harry spent the hottest hours in the sea, while Hermione stayed under the relative shelter of the palm trees. The salty water he accidentally swallowed during his swim burned his throat and left him thirstier than ever, and when he stumbled back on the beach in the late afternoon, the skin of his shoulders and arms was so sensitive he couldn't put his shirt back on.

"You're sunburnt," Hermione stated as he joined her under the trees. "Either that, or I'm going crazy and starting to see everything red."

She lay on her side, her arms folded over her stomach, in the exact same position she had been when Harry had gone swimming several hours ago. Her eyes looked strangely hollow, and when she moved her head to keep him in her field of vision, the motion was sluggish and half-hearted; but at least she was coherent, if a little hoarse-voiced.

"You're not crazy," he rasped in answer. "Bloody hell, that hurts."

"Should've stayed here," Hermione said, letting her head fall back on the rolled jumper that served as a pillow.

"I was underwater almost all the time. Didn't think I could get sunburnt that way."

Hermione snorted. "You sound like you've never been to the beach."

"Well, I haven't."

She cracked an eye open to throw at him a perplexed glance.

"Never?"

"No," Harry sighed. "The Dursleys weren't fond of taking me with them on holidays."

"Where did you spend the holidays then?"

"At Mrs. Figg's, most often."

"Mrs. Figg?" Hermione slowly repeated, a faint vertical line creasing the skin between her eyebrows. "Not that Squib who's in the Order?"

"The very same. Dumbledore had asked her to keep an eye on me ever since he dropped me off at Privet Drive after my parents were killed."

_After my parents were killed._ Harry's own words rang into his ears, and he had the sudden feeling that there was something he had missed; something important. He frowned, trying to push out of his mind the stinging from his sunburnt shoulders, arms and upper back, his terrible thirst, and the 

hunger cramps that twisted his insides. It was _there,_ a nagging feeling at the back of his mind — something he was forgetting, something _vital… _If only it was less difficult to _think…_

"I'm going to wet my shirt a little," he told Hermione at last. "For the sunburns."

She grunted something indistinct in answer, having apparently fallen back into the state of drowsy stupor that had been hers for most of the afternoon. Harry didn't insist and tiredly got to his feet, snatching his shirt from the ground, then walked back under the merciless glare of the sun.

He was busy wringing the shirt he had just dipped into the sea when it came back to him, in one great flash of realisation.

How on earth could they have both missed this, when it had been _obvious_ from the beginning?

Harry straightened up and hurriedly slipped his wet shirt on. Whirling round, he struggled against the water to get back on the beach, and was helped in his move by a wave that almost sent him sprawling on the ground; after a couple of stumbling steps he recovered his balance and sprinted across the burning-hot sand and up to the bunch of palm trees.

"Hermione!"

"Hmm?…"

"My father."

"Hmm…"

"He's not dead then. He's _here!_"

Hermione scrunched up her face, then opened her eyes with what looked like tremendous effort to glare blearily at Harry.

"What? Say that again?"

"My father," Harry patiently repeated, although he could barely keep still in excitement. "You said he managed to pass the gate. That means he survived the Killing Curse then. And he's here."

"Here? You found a set of bones on the island?" Hermione croaked out.

A chill went up Harry's spine, stifling brutally the wave of euphoria that had propelled him from the sea and back at Hermione's side.

"No," he said slowly at last. "But…"

He bit his lip. _But he had plenty of time to die here in the past sixteen years,_ he thought. _And to have his bones dispersed._

"But there's a possibility he was rescued, isn't there?" he said.

Hermione groaned and closed her eyes again. Harry opened his mouth to keep arguing his point, but as if in answer, a violent cramp tore at his stomach and wrenched a small gasp of pain from him. He reflexively wrapped his arms around his middle — only to hiss in pain again as he forgetfully grasped his sunburnt upper arm with one of his hands.

Hermione chose that moment to sob out a tiny, "Water… Need… water…".

_Yes. A very, very, very small possibility. About as small as the possibility that you and Hermione get off this island alive. _

Harry half-turned to look at Hermione. She didn't look conscious, and if he took into account the way their last conversation had ended, he doubted she would be much coherent if she was. With a sigh that sounded like an animal's moan, he lied down on his aching stomach on the hot ground, gingerly circling his jumper-pillow with his arms before resting his cheek on the soft wool. The sudden, almost feverish bout of elation he had experienced upon realising that he might not be without a father, after all, had now died down and given way to — nothing.

He felt hollow. Numb. Dazed.

He wasn't even sure he was still in pain.

* * *

He didn't know what day it was when he woke up — it could have been the evening of the same day, or the following morning, or the following afternoon. He didn't care much. He couldn't really bring himself to care for anything; he was not sure there was something he _should_ care about, in fact.

He moved, and found his whole body was a succession of pains mathematically added up. There was the searing pain from his back and arms, ten times worse than when he had fallen asleep. There was his empty stomach twisting with renewed franticness. There was the migraine pounding against his temples. There was a small, stinging cut on his heel. There were his bruises from the struggle with the snake — there had been a snake, somewhere, sometime, he was almost sure. And above all these, there was the thirst.

He found himself walking towards the sea.

The sand scorched his bare feet, and he broke into a heavy-stepped run that took him quickly to the darker patch of wet, cool ground. His legs weighed a ton each. The reverberation of sunlight on the sea and white sand hurt his eyes and sent a fresh, vicious pain shooting through his skull; he had to keep his lids mostly close, especially since he no longer had tears to spare for his dried eyes. All things considered, when he finally tripped and fell drunkenly on the wet sand, he thought it was surprising it didn't happen any sooner.

A wave rushed forward and gently came to lick his face and body, enveloping him in blessed coolness. It felt nice. He thought he could lie there and fall asleep, and everything would be all right. The pain and the thirst would go away. It would be good.

He lay on his flank, water covering almost completely the left side of his face, drenching his hair and clothes, before the wave retreated with a soft rumbling sound; like a whispered promise to come back soon. And it did. It came, and went, and came back, and went away again. Harry kept one eye open, fixed to the horizon. The sky was bright blue, and the sea was glittering golden and turquoise. It was beautiful.

A dark shape detached itself on the horizon.

Harry blinked, then slowly lifted his head from the damp sand to have a better look at it, mechanically pushing his glasses back up his nose as he did so.

The shape looked familiar. It evoked memories of his childhood, of books stolen from his cousin's spare bedroom and read at night at torchlight, in the dark stuffiness of his cupboard. A huge hull 

and several tall masts bearing large square sails drew the graceful silhouette of a galleon, a long-gone lord of oceans infested with bloodthirsty pirates and legendary treasures, talking parrots and pieces of eight, lost islands and ghostly ships.

He now knew he was hallucinating. He accepted that fact surprisingly well, actually. It was not really bothering him to lose his mind; he knew he should be worried about it, but he could not remember why.

One thing seemed important though: he could not let the galleon sail away.

There was a splash just in front of him, and Harry realised it was his own hand, diving into the water and driving it aside and away from him, to help him push his way through the waves — in fact, he was currently walking away from the beach and towards the horizon, although he could not remember ever getting up.

He had lost his footing, and he was swimming now. The water was transparent and shone like a gem. The salt made a rustling sound against his eardrums. The galleon drew slowly closer.

He could not reach it. He knew he could not. He kept trying anyway. His arms weakened, his breathing grew laboured. He called out to the ship, once, twice. He kept swimming. The salt caused his throat to burn. He was dizzy. His sight blurred, and suddenly he was no longer seeing the galleon — all he could see was the pale green bottom of the ocean, the soft rays of the sun falling all around him in a golden mist. A shoal of small silvery fish darted along just in front of his nose.

Everything slowly faded into a soft-hued darkness.

It was all very quiet.

Then a series of very loud, extremely inelegant and on the whole quite unpleasant events took place within the space of a few seconds, and next thing he knew, he was retching and heaving and spitting gallons of water on a hard, smooth and sun-heated surface.

"He's alive alright!" a thundering voice bawled right against Harry's left eardrum. The forgotten migraine seemed to take it as its cue to start hammering happily at his temples once more, and he flinched away from the noise, curling into foetal position on whatever _bloody hot_ surface he lay on, his face buried in his arms. There was way too much light. And noise. Everywhere. People talking, laughing, yelling, cussing, and stamping their feet right next to his head.

"Where the hell did you find him?"

"In the water. Yelled himself hoarse then sunk righ' down to the bottom of the sea. Asked capt'n Jack, he said to take him aboard, so I take him aboard."

"Why? He's a scrawny kid who looks too sick to go anywhere without his mummy."

"Gentlemen," a voice drawled over the others, causing everyone to fall into thrice-blessed silence. "If you don't step away from the scrawny kid and let me see him, I'll have to cut a few of you to pieces to get to him, and that's not something I want to do just before lunch; not to mention I'll have you scrub the blood off my ship afterwards. So, if you want to save you and meself the inconvenience…"

There was a shuffling of feet in front of Harry, then approaching footsteps caused the floor to vibrate slightly under him; the footsteps halted right in front of his face.

"He alive?" the same voice asked, sounding perplexed.

"Aye Capt'n," said someone on Harry's right. "He's breathin' at least."

"I see."

A hand gripped Harry's hair and tugged on it, forcing his head backwards and exposing his face to the blinding light. Harry blinked and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I see," the man — the captain, Harry's brain dutifully informed him — said again. "Looks a bit parched. Someone have water?"

There was a low rumbling of assent, then a popping noise close to Harry's face — then the neck of a bottle was forced between his lips and water flowed inside his mouth; cool, clear, sweet, wonderful water. Harry unconsciously raised a hand to grip the bottle as he avidly drank.

"Easy, kid," the captain said. "A little at a time. There."

The bottle was wrenched from his grasp, but the horrible thirst had lessened already to a mere longing, perfectly bearable, and Harry was able to rasp out a comprehensible, "Thanks."

"Speaks English!" the captain said to everyone in general. "That'll make it easier. Now kid, look at me."

Harry cautiously opened his eyes a fraction.

"Better than that."

Harry let out a frustrated sigh, but the man was in a situation of power — he had water. Harry complied, opening his eyes to their fullest.

"Wait," he said — or rather tried to say, for his vocal cords apparently wouldn't function properly. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Wait… I don't have my glasses, I can't see anything."

"His glasses?" the captain repeated. "Mr. Gibbs, did you spot anything that could serve as this young man's glasses while you were down there fishin' him out?"

"Aye sir, I believe so, sir," a man answered. "Weird thing. Never saw anything like it before. Here it is, Captain."

Something moved in Harry's field of vision, although it was too blurry — even blurrier than his usual without-glasses sight — for him to distinguish anything. Then there were a few silent seconds during which no one moved at all.

"I see," the captain said at last in a thoughtful tone. "Here, kid."

His glasses were roughly placed on his nose.

Harry automatically lifted a hand to steady them, but he almost dropped it back when his vision cleared at last and he was able to see where he was.

He sat on the deck of a huge ship, entirely made of wood; cannons lined the rails, a colossal mast rose high into the air about six feet from him and bore yards and square sails of considerable size — and he could see other masts outlined behind the sails by the sunlight. It was a fantastic, otherworldly sight.

The man crouching in front of him nicely completed the picture under this aspect — he could not possibly be real, either.

He was lean and agile, and as far as Harry could tell, probably not much taller than himself. He had a sharp-edged, suntanned face, dark brown moustache and beard — and that was where he stopped looking even remotely _normal._ His beard was plaited into two skinny braids that hung about two inches from his chin; his eyes, dark and keen, were heavily lined with what suspiciously looked like black kohl; a wide faded-red bandana covered his forehead and the top of his head, and from under it spilled an improbable quantity of dark brown dreadlocks.

It did not end there. Trinkets hung in his hair, beads and coins tied to ribbons or plaited into the hair. The hand that rested on Harry's shoulder bore heavy rings on several fingers. Next to those strange ornaments, the loose linen shirt, the breeches, boots, and the pistol and sword that hung at his belt looked perfectly commonplace.

Pistol and sword. _Wait, what?_

Harry looked round. The men circling him and the captain had all rough, suntanned faces, linen shirts and worn-out breeches; some had shoes, most went barefoot; and most importantly, they all carried either eighteen-century pistols or short blades.

And he was on the deck of what very much looked like the galleon he had spotted earlier on the beach.

Something clicked in Harry's mind, which made him forget completely the oddity of his situation. The beach. _Hermione._

"So, are you done staring and can you answer my question now?" the eccentric-looking captain asked him. "How'd you get here?"

"I — I saw the ship from the island." Harry stumbled over his own words as his heart started hammering in his chest. Hermione, abandoned on the island, while the ship sailed away…

"Ain't no island here, boy," the captain said. "Unless you mean the Rum Runners' Island."

"I don't know, an island with white sand and palm trees and no water," Harry said, his voice sounding much more high-pitched than usual to his own ears. In some part of his mind — the part that just wanted to collapse in a shadowy corner and never see the sunlight again — he wondered why he was still talking and moving at all, and why he was being so loud and restless whereas he was technically out of danger.

In the other part of his mind, however, all he could see was Hermione's prostrate form and the vague, unfocused gaze of her sunken eyes. "My friend and I got stranded on it," he went on, his voice firmer. "She's still there, she's sick, we have to go back and get her—"

"There were two of you on that island?" the captain interrupted.

"Yes, but there's no food and no water, I don't think she can—"

Harry was cut off in the middle of his sentence as the captain suddenly straightened up and barked several orders to the men around him, in words so peculiar to Harry's ears that he could as well have been speaking another language. At once, the crew scattered all over the deck, some climbing swiftly into the shrouds.

"Sir," Harry started again, desperate to be heard.

"Mr. Gibbs!" the captain roared. "Get the kid down in the hold and give him some more water and food."

"But sir—"

"Easy there, boy," a low voice growled. A hand seized Harry's arm, crushing the sunburnt flesh, and Harry's voice got stuck in his throat before he could cry out in pain. There was just too much of it — too much pain, too much exhaustion, too much hunger and thirst. Right before he passed out, he heard Gibbs' voice saying, "We're going back to get your friend, so relax now. All right?"

"All right," Harry mumbled back. Blackness swallowed him, and he welcomed it with open arms.

* * *

The smell woke him up.

Soup.

Harry's stomach grumbled more loudly than ever, and his eyes shot open. He was lying in a hammock made out of an old fishing net, and a dry, rancid smell of fish hung all around him, faint but very present. It was dark and cool. The hammock swung gently with the ship's rolling, and he could hear water lapping at the hull about five inches from his right ear.

The darkness around him, combined with the low ceiling and the lapping sound that indicated he was at sea level or even lower, made him slightly claustrophobic; his hunger helping, he promptly decided it would be a good idea to get out of there and find food — and open space.

He swung his legs out of the hammock and clumsily slid down to the floor; his legs were a bit weak and his eyes weren't quite adjusted to the darkness, and he walked with his arms outstretched before him like a blind man. This turned out to be an excellent idea, for he almost immediately bumped into another hammock hanging next to his.

As he felt his way around it, a hatch opened a few yards ahead of him, and sound and daylight poured from the opening into whatever dark section of the hull Harry was in. A pair of legs clad in knee-breeches appeared and started climbing down the small ladder. The smell of soup grew stronger, and Harry found himself salivating so much he had to swallow a couple of times, for fear he would start drooling on the floor.

The sailor who had just come through the hatch half-turned to look at Harry, and his grey, bushy eyebrows shot up when he saw him standing next to the second hammock.

"Better let her sleep," he said in a low voice. "She's had water already, plenty of it. Don't worry 'bout her."

Harry, confused, glanced down at the hammock. By the faint light coming from the open hatch, he was shocked to recognise Hermione, sleeping soundly under a bunch of blankets of dubious cleanness.

"Is she —"

"I just told you she'll be all right," the sailor said. "Now get over here, unless you don't want lunch."

_Lunch._ The mere word sent Harry's salivary glands into frenzied activity once again. He then noticed, for the first time, that the sailor was carrying a mess tin full of the thick soup he had smelt when he 

had first waken up. He didn't need anything more to convince him; he walked over to the foot of the ladder, where the sailor handed him the soup and a kind of dry biscuit that looked little better than Hagrid's cooking — but still, it was food.

"Join me on the main deck when you've finished," the man said. "Captain wants to see you."

Without waiting for an answer, the sailor went up the ladder and out of sight again, leaving the hatch open behind him.

Harry wolfed down the soup and managed to swallow the hard biscuit — which very nearly cost him a tooth or two. The indigestible food had the advantage of taking away most of his appetite, and he soon discarded the empty mess tin, feeling considerably better than when he had waken up; at least he wasn't feeling as if he might collapse any time soon.

Now that his stomach was full and his thirst was quenched, he was able to give some thought to his new situation. Hermione and him were no longer in immediate danger of starving to death, which was good; on the other hand, the mystery of the place they had been thrown in had just thickened. It seemed that they had travelled back in time as well as in space, and they had landed somewhere near the Equator — if he was to guess from the heat and the colour of the sea — a couple of centuries before their own time. If so, they would have to find a way back to Great Britain, and maybe Hogwarts, or at least places he knew wizards inhabited. There they would find wands — and possibly a way out.

In the meantime, he was stuck aboard a big vessel, at the mercy of the captain who had rescued him. Harry wasn't too worried, though; the fact that the man had immediately ordered his men to go back to the island and save Hermione spoke in his favour. He had gone to the trouble of having them taken care of, he could hardly be planning to harm them afterwards.

Remembering that the captain wanted to see him, Harry checked on Hermione one last time then proceeded to climb the ladder. He emerged onto a deck where there were mostly guns, lined up on either side of the hull, each in front of a small hatch that looked ready to be opened and expose the mouth of the cannons to the open sea. A couple of men were slouched against the hull, eating soup from their mess tins, and they watched Harry curiously as he walked between them towards another ladder leading up to the upper level. Harry nodded to them, somewhat nervous, but neither man answered.

Harry refrained the urge to quicken his pace as he felt the sailors' gaze on the back of his neck, all the way to the ladder. He had noted they were dressed in filthy patched-up shirts, and the frayed hem of their breeches uncovered the dirty, scarred skin of their calves and their bare feet. Their long matted hair and beard made them look more like brigands than sailors. With such a crew, the ship could hardly be a military one; and although he was clueless on the subject, so many cannons seemed out of place on a mere merchant ship.

Something cold settled in the pit of his stomach as he considered another possibility. He firmly pushed it out of his mind, calling himself paranoid; he had probably read too many pirates tales as a child. Maybe those sailors had been at sea for a very long time. Maybe merchant ships had to be able to defend themselves against pirate attacks, hence the cannons. In fact, it didn't matter; he would worry about the ship's purpose later.

Harry finally climbed out of the hatch and onto the main deck. The sunlight blinded him, and the constant comings and goings of men calling to each other on the deck and in the shrouds left him slightly dizzy, after the quiet obscurity of the hold. It was a few minutes before he found his bearings and ventured on the deck.

The first thing he noticed was that, thank God, he wasn't seasick at all. In fact he found the slow and ample motions of the ship quite enjoyable. The second thing he noticed was a peculiar feature of the ship: it was entirely painted in black. The hull, deck, masts, everything was black; the sails themselves were made out of black canvas.

He stood just before the first of the three masts, facing the front of the ship; his wariness vanished entirely to give way to a mounting excitement at the fact that he was aboard a huge ship for the first time in his life, and he had a rather childish impulse to go over to the very end of it and see the hull cut its way through the waves.

He had taken two steps away from the hatch when a voice called, "Hey! You, from the Runners' Island! Over here!"

Harry halted and looked round, to find the sailor who had brought him soup in the hold beckoning to him. He nodded and quickly jogged across the deck to join him.

"Thanks for the soup," he said as soon as he had reached the man's side.

"Welcome, kid," the sailor said, sounding a bit surprised, but rather pleasantly so. "I'm supposed to take you to Captain Jack Sparrow. He's the one who told me to fish you out the other day."

"The other day? How long was I out?"

"Couple days, and you wasn't out," the sailor said as he led him along the rail to the back of the ship. "Bit delirious, but awake."

"Oh… Well, thank you, sir. For, erm, taking care of me and my friend. And for saving me," Harry said, a bit awkwardly.

"Orders of Captain Jack," the sailor repeated with a grin. "And the name's Mr. Gibbs. I'm the bosun. You?"

"Harry Potter."

"British, aye?"

"Erm, yeah. How did you—"

"Accent," Gibbs said, nodding gravely. "I've dealt with more British sailors than I ever wanted to, in me time. So've most men here. Hurry along, kid."

The bosun's ominous words chilled Harry, and he couldn't help but shoot nervous glances around him as Gibbs steered him across the main deck; he thought the men were following him with their eyes, and they did not look nearly as welcoming as the gruff Mr. Gibbs. He had to make an effort to refrain from speeding up his pace.

They finally reached a staircase leading up to a heightened deck — which probably had a specific name, but Harry knew next to nothing of nautical vocabulary, something he feared would soon become inconvenient. It was a kind of platform taking up the full width of the ship and almost one third of its length; two staircases, one at either end of the platform, allowed them to get onto it. Gibbs climbed the stairs in barely three strides, with surprising agility considering his heavy built and the age betrayed by his whitening sideboards; Harry followed more slowly, not wanting to test his strengths just yet.

On the heightened deck were three men. One was a bearded placid-looking sailor who stood beside the wheel, his eyes fixed on the horizon, a parrot perched on his shoulder; the other two had their backs to Harry and were bent over an upturned square box, examining something Harry couldn't see from where he stood.

"Captain Sparrow, sir," Gibbs announced. "I've got him here."

Harry had been looking at the bearded helmsman, but he barely blinked, seemingly taking no notice of their presence. On the other hand, the two men who had seemed so absorbed in their task only seconds before straightened up and whirled around immediately, the motion so abrupt that Harry suspected they had either been faking deep concentration, or didn't want Gibbs to see what they were looking at.

Harry recognised one of them instantly as the strange-looking captain with the dark brown dreadlocks and red bandana; his companion was a taller and bulkier man, with a grim, scarred face, small yellow eyes and straggling beard and hair that escaped from a huge weather-worn hat. In addition to the simple waistcoat a lot of sailors wore, both men sported heavier, long-sleeved coats, and thick baldrics over them that supported the swords hanging at their sides.

"Ah," the man with the red bandana — presumably Captain Sparrow — said, sounding pleased. "Thank you, Gibbs. Off you go."

"Aye, sir."

"So who the hell is that?" growled Jack Sparrow's yellow-eyed companion.

"Name, boy?" Sparrow asked, his tone nonchalant, as if the other sailor hadn't spoken at all.

"Harry Potter," Harry said. "Sir," he hastily added. The captain smiled at the afterthought, showing very white teeth — and a golden one.

"Mr. Potter," he repeated, studying Harry with a kind of detached interest from under half-lowered eyelids. "Are you a sailor?"

Given his total ignorance of anything related to navigation, Harry thought telling the truth was not only his best option, but his only viable one. "No, sir. I've never been on a ship before."

"You don't look sick, that's something," the captain noted. "Afraid of heights?"

"No, not at all, sir. I'm used to them."

"Any idea how you ended up on Jack's island?" the unknown sailor suddenly spoke up again.

"Jack's island?" Harry asked, confused.

"The island you were on," the man went on, his nasal voice dragging out the words. "Jack here is the governor of it. Was marooned twice on it." The man sneered, uncovering teeth as yellow as his eyes. "I was the one who marooned him. Both times."

"That's quite enough, I think," Sparrow curtly interrupted. Harry noticed the smile had slipped off his face, his lip curling in an aggravated expression. "Hector, I'm going to talk to the kid—" Sparrow pointed a ringed finger towards the nearest mast, on the lower deck, "—over there," he added, looking pointedly at the man he had called 'Hector.'

"I'm Captain Barbossa," the man told Harry, without so much as acknowledging Sparrow. "The true captain of this ship."

"Yeah, he was the first mate," Sparrow cut in, with a negligent wave of his hand. "That's what he means. Got a whole theory about who's closer to the real life of the crew and all that nonsense. Bottom line is, _I_ hired him."

"Never had to regret it, aye Jack?" Barbossa said with a smirk.

"To be perfectly honest I wished you had better breath, but some things can't be helped," Sparrow retorted with a charming smile. "Now, Hector, I'm moving over _there._"

He jerked his head at the lower deck again, and Barbossa nodded curtly in response. Never taking their eyes off each other, both captains took one step backwards, then another, and kept walking back until they were both at the top of each of the small staircases leading down the platform. Then, just as slowly, they started getting down their stairs, with an odd crab-like sideways walk, their gazes still attached to each other's eyes as if they wanted to be sure the other wouldn't suddenly move to attack.

It was only when they both reached the lower deck at the exact same time that they stopped their strange behaviour. Barbossa wheeled around and strode away, barking a well-placed insult at a sailor that lounged at the foot of the mast, and Sparrow beckoned to Harry with a satisfied little smirk on his face.

Utterly puzzled, Harry hastened to join captain Sparrow, who had started walking away without waiting to see if Harry was following. As he went, he replayed the scene he had just witnessed over and over in his head — but if anything, it made even less sense every time he thought of it. What kind of ship had _two_ captains who not only clearly distrusted each other, but also sounded as if they could barely stand the other's presence?

"Not what you expected, is it?" Sparrow said as they halted at the foot of the mast. Harry looked at him inquiringly and found the man's gaze fixed on his face. The captain had obviously been watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"Expect from what, sir?" Harry slowly asked.

Sparrow gestured around. "The ship," he said. "You've recognised her, aye?"

Harry shook his head. Sparrow's piercing eyes were still attached to his, as if the sailor was trying to read his mind, and the intense scrutinizing was starting to unnerve him. The diffuse uneasiness Harry had been feeling since his awakening grew sharper, denser. For the first time he realised how vulnerable he was, without magic, trapped on the ship by a seemingly endless sea more surely than in any prison.

"You've never heard of the _Black Pearl?_" Sparrow insisted.

"No, sir. It's the first time I come around here." Harry hesitated for a second before continuing, "Is there something specific I should know about the _Black Pearl,_ captain?"

Sparrow raised an eyebrow at him, and his expression, from attentive, toned down to mildly amused. "Well I suppose you should since you're sailin' on her," he drawled. "To mention only the most important things: you should know that she only sails as her captain commands. That's _me_. Also know that there's no faster or deadlier ship in the Caribbean—"

The Caribbean. Harry's heart sunk into his chest and settled somewhere in his abdomen. How on earth were they supposed to go back to England from the Caribbean without using Portkeys or Apparition — which wasn't an option, since neither he nor Hermione had a wand?

"—with… maybe one exception, but it doesn't count. And most of all: there's no dead weight in her crew," Sparrow went on. "You want to stay on board, you work as hard as everyone else. If you don't know how to do something, you learn. If you can't learn, we'll find something to motivate you, and you'll have the scars to remember it. Savvy?"

The captain's casual tone chilled Harry's blood more efficiently than if he had been yelling. Harry nodded, wondering how their situation had gone from critical to practically desperate in a matter of minutes; navigation, with its language, its codes and its mysterious tasks, had never felt stranger to him now that he was expected to become familiar with it. Harry fought down with difficulty the first rising wave of panic.

"Good man," Sparrow said with an approving grin. Without transition, he seemed to lose all interest whatsoever in Harry and simply turned his back on him, walking back towards the helm on the heightened deck while throwing at him a last few words in a distracted voice. "Find Gibbs, he'll give you some work to do, and if you're as quick to learn as your father was it should go smoothly enough… Mr. Cotton!"

Harry remained rooted to the stop, eyes widened to their fullest extent staring at Sparrow's retreating back.

It was a full minute before he found his voice again.

"Captain! Sir!" he called, sprinting after Sparrow.

"I believe you have your orders, Mr. Potter," Sparrow said without turning round. He swiftly climbed the wooden stairs to the heightened deck, sent the helmsman away with a few instructions — of which Harry did not understand a single word — and took his place behind the wheel.

"Please, sir," Harry said, his former apprehension evaporating as the wild hope Sparrow's words had awakened made his heart quicken. "You knew my father?"

Sparrow didn't look at him, but he closed his eyes with a long exaggerated sigh as if praying to the heavens to be granted patience. "You're James Potter's son, aye?"

Harry struggled to keep a huge, silly grin from his face. "Yes sir."

"Then yeah, I knew him. I _know_ him, even, since he was still alive last time I checked," Sparrow said in a bored voice. "Off you go now."

"Do you know where he is?" Harry asked again.

This time, Sparrow turned his head in a slow, deliberate motion to stare right back at him, and Harry couldn't help flinching away from the captain's icy cold glare.

"Listen here, kid," he said. "You're on me ship. I tell you to do something, you do it, no questions, no delay, no arguing, no 'buts' or 'ifs' or 'that-is-to-says'. Now get out of my sight before I lose my patience with you."

Harry didn't need much more to be reminded of his precarious situation. He mumbled "Yes, sir" and hurtled down the staircase, then, considering that the best way to keep himself in one piece was obviously to follow the orders he was given to the best of his abilities, set out to seek the bosun Gibbs.

* * *

It was an exhausted Harry that stumbled down into the lower deck of the forecastle, at the end of the day. His body ached with several hours of hard work with little food and water to keep him upright, his head buzzed with the strange names of the various parts of the ship, and the brightness of the sun reflecting on the waves had left colourful spots dancing before his eyes, making him practically blind in the obscurity of the _Black Pearl_'s insides.

He felt his way to the hammock that hung near the bulkhead and climbed in it, lying back with a blissful sigh, hardly noticing this time the faint smell of rotten fish that surrounded him. His head hurt again.

"Harry?"

"Mmh…"

"Harry, it's me," Hermione's voice whispered urgently, and a hand closed on his shoulder. "Answer me."

"'Lo 'Mione…" Harry mumbled, without opening his eyes.

There were a few seconds of silence, and Harry could feel himself sliding smoothly into sleep — but suddenly both of Hermione's hands gripped his shoulders and she shook him roughly. "Oh my God — Harry, wake up! Talk to me!"

"What the hell," Harry grumbled. He seized Hermione's wrists and shoved her hands away from him, then forced his eyes open to glare up at his best friend. "I'm dead beat, Hermione, what do you want?"

In the darkness, he could just make out the outline of her figure, standing beside his hammock. But the vexation was perfectly audible in her voice as she replied, "I thought you were ill! You just came back in here and collapsed in the hammock without even seeing me! You think I wouldn't be worried when I had no idea where you've been all day—"

"Keep your voice down," Harry interrupted. "My head hurts."

Hermione complied, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Where have you been?"

"On the deck… Well, mostly in the riggings, Gibbs had me work on every single sail on this bloody boat."

"Gibbs? Who's that?"

"Bosun." Harry tiredly sat up in his hammock, letting his legs hang over the edge of it. "We have to be part of the crew. They're not letting us sail with them otherwise."

"But — but I've never—" Hermione stopped talking abruptly and took a deep, shaky breath. "Okay. Be part of the crew. All right. I can do that."

"I doubt you'll be asked to do the same things as me," Harry pointed out. "What with you being a girl and everything."

"Yes, well…" Hermione stopped again, clearly at a loss for words. Harry's hammock swung a little as she sat down next to him, and when her shoulder touched his arm, he could feel her shivering as though she was feverish.

"You okay?" he said.

"Just a bit seasick. I'll be fine… Harry, what are we going to do? We need to go home."

Harry ran a hand through his too-long hair; it had kept getting into his face all through the day, and he distractedly thought he would need a headband of some sort if he wanted to keep it out of his eyes. He had a humourless smile that he knew Hermione couldn't see: before the week was gone he would end up looking like any sailor of the _Pearl_. Like a real pirate, in fact.

He wasn't sure how he could tell Hermione what he had found out about the _Pearl_ and her crew without causing her to panic.

"What we must remember," he said slowly, "is that we're not going to die just yet."

"Wha—"

"If we weren't on this ship, we'd be dead at this time," Harry insisted. "We've got food, water and shelter here. That's the most important. "

"Harry… You sound like you're about to tell me bad news."

_You have no idea,_ Harry thought wryly.

"The ship's called the _Black Pearl,_ and it's captained by Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa," he said in a voice as neutral as he could make it. "And we're in the Caribbean sea. I've seen the two captains, and I doubt they'll stop in a port just to make sure we can go home, Hermione. We'll have to wait — but again, we're not in danger of dying yet."

"Yes, things could be worse," Hermione agreed. "And they'll have to get fresh supplies at some time or another. Any idea where they're going? Is this a merchant ship?"

"Another thing," Harry said, a bit more loudly. "This _is_ our world, but we're sometime in the eighteenth century. So if we do go home—"

"—We won't find anyone we know," Hermione finished in a thoughtful tone. "I had thought of that; I mean, even from the inside, this ship doesn't look exactly modern, does it?… But at least we'll find wands and other wizards, Harry. It won't be easy, and it might take us years, but we'll be able to find a way back to our time once we get back to England. We can't do anything while being stuck here. Do you know where the ship is heading for?"

Harry cleared his throat and looked away from her; his fingers found, at the bottom of the hammock, the heavy coat and jumper he had worn at Godric's Hollow, and which had apparently been used as a blanket. He started playing distractedly with the clothes.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, sounding a bit concerned. "Did you find out where the ship's going, or not?"

"Well…" Harry cleared his throat again. "There might be a slight problem about tha—"

Harry suddenly broke off as his hand explored an inside pocket of his coat. It was empty. He groped for the other pockets and felt inside them frantically, but found no more than a couple of dried crumbs; his searching of the lining of the coat revealed fruitless as well. Harry swore quietly.

"What is it?" Hermione whispered urgently. "Harry?"

"The ship's not going anywhere for some time," Harry said. "Not before they've made some profit. They're pirates, Hermione."

And in a surge of sudden, murderous rage, Harry seized the coat he had been searching, ripped it from inside the hammock and threw it as hard as he could against the bulkhead.

"And they took Voldemort's Horcrux," he snarled.

* * *

Captain Jack Sparrow twirled between his fingers the heavy locket he had taken from the British boy. It was gold, rather crudely made, with a long S twisting at the front of it; the letter and the antiquity of the jewel suggested it was an old family heirloom. It seemed unlikely that it belonged to young Potter, who simply didn't look like the proud heir of an old family. Jack supposed he had stolen the locket, then fled from Britain aboard a ship — possibly with the intention of going looking for his father — and had been marooned on the Rum Runners' Island for some reason.

A picture of the kid sprawled on the deck of the _Pearl, _where he had been dropped after being hauled out of the sea, popped to the front of Jack's mind. The impression of déjà vu had been immediate; the thin face, sharply drawn chin and nose, the thin lips, black hair, high forehead — the boy was the image of his father, as Jack had first seen him in Tortuga. But _that_ had happened a long time ago. Jack doubted he would have made the connection between his former crewman and the half-dead kid, if it hadn't been for his odd-looking glasses, very similar to those James Potter had been wearing himself. The boy's name, and his reaction to the mention of his father, had only confirmed Jack's suspicions.

Jack pocketed the locket and returned his attention to the map that was spread on the study table in the vast captain cabin. Sitting across the table, Barbossa was doing the same, tracing lines of courses over the map with his finger and checking from time to time a regular compass laying open on the table.

"You're up to something," Barbossa said without lifting his head.

"And you," Jack replied, "have your dirty hands all over my map. Move them."

"Who's that kid you picked up from your island?" Barbossa asked; he looked up this time to survey Jack with narrowed eyes.

"You were there when he said his name, weren't you? Although in case your memory's failing, which, come to think of it, would be all to understandable given your age, he's called Potter. Part of the crew now."

"He's no sailor."

"He's learning just fine."

"I didn't agree to it," Barbossa growled.

"True." Jack furrowed his brow, nodding thoughtfully. "This might be because I never asked for your opinion."

Barbossa's scowl deepened. "You rescue him," he said. "You have him taken care of. You make him part of my crew. There must be something you wanna do with him."

"Yep," Jack lightly answered. "A sailor worthy of _my_ crew and _my_ ship, for a start."

He didn't bother hiding his grin as Barbossa rolled his eyes.

"Now, Jack," Barbossa said, dragging the 'a' in Jack's name in a way that never failed to irritate him — something he suspected was the desired effect. "I can always tell when you're up to something. There's no use trying to hide it, and you're doing a poor job of it anyway. Might as well tell me now."

Jack shrugged, then fetched the locket in a large pocket of his coat and carelessly threw it on the map between them.

Barbossa's eyes glinted as they fell on the golden jewel.

"He had that," Jack drawled. "It's worth checking how he got it."

"Why? Now that we've taken it—"

"He probably stole it," Jack went on, casually speaking over him. "And that kind of family jewel is heavily prized by their owner; we could earn loads more with the right information than by simply selling it."

Barbossa extended a hand towards the locket, but Jack was quicker, snatching it up from the table and putting it away while his other hand came to rest on the butt of his pistol — just in case that blasted monkey of Barbossa's would be in the vicinity. His former first mate threw at him a disgusted look, then leant back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

"You think too much, Jack," he stated. "Sometimes it's best to be simple."

"Someone on this ship has to do the thinking, and it's been proven subtle reasoning isn't your strong suit." Jack flashed a grin at Barbossa and picked up a stout bottle sitting on the table within his reach. He considered it for a second, then turned it upside down and watched a single drop of rum fall on the table.

"Why is the rum always gone?" he sighed. "Let's go get some more."

"You can go, I'll stay."

Jack cast Barbossa a disappointed look. "Mate, who do you think I am?"

Barbossa rolled his eyes again and got to his feet, making sure Jack saw him loading his pistol as he did so. Both men briefly glanced at the now unused captain's bunk, under which Sao Feng's map was rolled up and stowed away. The Chinese map had fallen into their hands two years prior; to those who could read it, it revealed the deepest secrets of the ocean, and the man who owned it would have the necessary leverage to be the undisputed captain of the _Black Pearl._

The two captains knew it. After countless unsuccessful attempts, from both of them, to seize the map and claim it as their own, they had settled for a kind of unspoken agreement — they studied 

the map together, stood guard over it together, but never left one of them alone with it. Jack, just like Barbossa, would grab every opportunity to get rid of the surplus captain; and they both knew it.

They left the cabin at the exact same time and went down in the hold, where were stored the food, the water and the rum — as well as the loot and the occasional prisoner.

"So when do you plan to ask the kid how he got his medallion?" Barbossa asked as he and Jack made their way back to the ladder, each with a bottle of rum in one hand.

"Month or so," Jack called back over his shoulder.

"Why wait a month?"

Jack had a thin-lipped smile. "Best way to catch him off-guard is to wait till he's got used to the ship."

"Going through all this trouble for a locket," Barbossa snorted. "See Jack, that's exactly why you're a disastrous captain."

Jack's smile widened. As far as the Potter kid was concerned, the locket was the least of his worries, and it was hardly part of his plans; but Barbossa didn't need to know that.


	4. Sailors Aboard the Black Pearl

* * *

** Drink Up, Me Hearties **

* * *

**4 – Sailors Aboard the Black Pearl**

"Rrrrah! Wind in the sails!"

Hermione's eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright in panic, which caused her hammock to swing wildly, almost sending her crashing on the floor below. The bright-coloured parrot let out an odd, metallic cackle as it fluttered around her head, great green wings flapping noisily about.

"Wind in the sails! Wind in the sails!" it screeched again.

"All right, all right, I'm getting up," Hermione groaned. She waved her hand irritably at the bird, which let out another raucous screech and flew away.

Hermione tiredly slid down her hammock. It hung at the most forward end of the forecastle, in a tiny space closed by a makeshift curtain made of her and Harry's old coats; it was not the quietest nor the most comfortable place on the ship by far, but it had other advantages. For example, no other crewman slept there.

Hermione slipped on a too-large waistcoat over the linen shirt Harry had found her, God knew how — at least it showed less cleavage than the silly shirt worn by the mousy Muggle woman she had been impersonating at Godric's Hollow, and it also was considerably more solid, if somewhat rougher — and tied over it the rope that served as her belt. Then, pulling back the curtain, she tiptoed out of her tiny quarters and onto the lower gun deck. All the way to the main mast, cannons lined up along both sides of the hull, solidly moored in front of their respective hatches; out of her sight was the shadowy space between the main and mizzen masts, where the rest of the crew had their quarters.

She walked up to the ladder, her bare feet making absolutely no sound on the time-polished wood of the lower deck, and swiftly climbed it to emerge on the main deck. It was not quite dawn yet. The light was weak and pallid, and the cold of the night still lingered, making her shiver. Mr. Cotton, the parrot's owner, was patiently waiting for her on the deck, his lined, bearded face as placid as ever. At his feet were a bucket full of salty water and a couple of rough brushes. His garish bird was perched on his shoulder and gazed down at her insolently.

"I wasn't long, was I?" Hermione said; it came out as more petulant than she intended, but she had never been a morning person — and her nights were short lately.

"Rrrrrrah! Storm ahead!" the parrot snickered. Cotton grinned in his beard, seemingly unaffected by Hermione's bad temper, then wordlessly gestured down to the bucket of water.

"All right, all right," Hermione sighed. "Marty's already at work?"

Cotton nodded.

"Okay, I'll get going then."

Cotton grinned at her again before he set off, heading towards the stern where he would probably take up his usual place behind the wheel. Hermione looked round until she had spotted Marty's form, crouching on the deck at the bow of the ship, then she swooped down and picked up the two brushes. Pinning them against her body with her elbow, she seized the bucket with both hands and lifted it off the deck.

The first time, she hadn't had been prepared to the sheer weight of the bucket and had dropped it at once, spilling its contents all over herself in the process — and to add insult to injury, many sailors had witnessed her soaking the flimsy woman's shirt she had been wearing at the time. The scene that had followed had been highly unpleasant, and even as she staggered towards Marty without spilling a drop of water upon the deck, the memory made her face burn with humiliation.

"Hey," Marty said as she lowered her bucket next to his. He was a dwarf, with a square jaw ending in a pointed chin, thick lips, a shiny bald head, and golden rings in both ears; from what Hermione had seen, his small size made him the odd-job man of the ship, a status he now — grudgingly — shared with her. He was quite friendly to her, though, although he affected to keep his distances and had developed an obvious liking in ordering her around.

"Hello," Hermione replied, trying to smile.

"Larry's up yet?"

"I haven't seen him." Kneeling down on the deck, she dipped her brush in the water and started scrubbing next to the dwarf pirate.

"Hope he gets his ass up 'ere fast," Marty grumbled. "There won't be too many of us with the mess they did last night." He jerked his chin towards the large stains he was scrubbing clean on the deck. Hermione did not know what they were, and had absolutely no desire to venture a guess. However, at the sailor's words, she looked up hopefully.

"If this is going to take some time," she said, "would it be okay if I—"

"Yeah, all right, hurry up and get back here before the capt'n shows up!" Marty snapped.

Beaming, Hermione thanked him and jumped to her feet, leaving the brush on the deck next to her bucket. Silent and swift, she ran along the deck towards the starboard bulwarks, at the point where the main shroud of the foremast was solidly anchored to the timber. Hermione disliked heights and had no talent in climbing shrouds or swinging on the end of a rope like a monkey; and it was with extreme caution that she swung out on the shroud and slowly progressed upwards, concentrating on putting her foot at the right place, again and again, never pausing to glance below at the sea or the main deck.

She reached the first yard and scanned the length of it quickly; the foresail was spread below it and swelled gently, its black canvas rippling at times in fluid motions as the feeble breeze was helpless in tightening it fully, but there was no one in sight to control it. She climbed a little further up until she reached the fighting top — the small platform circling the mast halfway between the upper and lower yards. The passage granting her access to it was the lubber hole, inside the platform, and that was also where the other end of the shroud was fixed. She gratefully ended her climbing and hauled herself through the hole and onto the top.

"You know, I've seen some simply swing out around, instead of going through the lubber hole."

Hermione gave a violent start as the voice unexpectedly sounded from behind her, and she whirled around, heart hammering in panic — only to meet Harry's rather amused eyes.

"Very funny," she grumbled.

"To be honest, it was," Harry said with a slight smirk.

He was slouching against the mast, his stance perfectly relaxed, one arm resting on his folded knee while his other hand distractedly fingered the handle of the cutlass hanging at his waist. Over three weeks aboard the _Black Pearl_ had apparently been enough for him to find his place among the sailors, something Hermione couldn't help being a bit jealous of. Then again, he had learnt fast, and was doing as much work as any other crewman.

Harry shifted slightly, clearing a little space next to him, and Hermione went to sit down.

"Haven't seen you in a while," he said mildly. "Doing okay?"

She sensed his worrying under the casual tone. Hermione's beginnings aboard the _Pearl_ has been difficult, to say the least; to most crewmen she was a woman, and a young, defenceless one, too. They were pirates, who had been at sea for several months already, and most of them had a way of looking at her that made her deeply uncomfortable. Harry had tried to stick with her as much as he could — but Gibbs kept him busy almost twenty-four hours a day, and most of the time Hermione had found herself having to work on her own among the leering pirates. She doubted Harry would have been much of a match against any of them, anyway; they were tough men, stronger than him, and with absolutely no shame when it came to fighting dirty. She had kept that thought to herself though; no matter what, she felt safer when he was watching her back.

"Fine," she said, reassuring him with a smile. "I keep close to Cotton."

Cotton was something of a guardian angel to her. After the first few days, the tension had escalated until Hermione spent every waking hour in a state of near-panic, hardly daring sleep at night, although Harry had hung his hammock next to hers. Unfortunately, on most evenings he was so tired that he could barely have a coherent conversation with her, much less stand watch. That was when Cotton had taken her under his wing. For reasons that were obscure to both her and Harry, the mute seemed to be very fond of Hermione, in a fatherly kind of way, and ostentatiously protected her.

"That's good," Harry agreed. "Watch your back though, Cotton's rather liked, but if someone decides to knock him unconscious I doubt he can put up much of a fight. If you're having problems, go to Gibbs, he'll tell Sparrow. Captain has good arguments."

Hermione grimaced. Indeed, once, Cotton's vigilance had slipped and three sailors had managed to corner her — things might have gotten really ugly if Captain Jack Sparrow, suddenly appearing from God knew where, hadn't casually shot one of her aggressors then walked away as if nothing had happened. She still remembered the heavy body falling limply against hers, the man's eyes open wide in surprise, the blood soaking her clothes—

Hermione shuddered and willed the image away.

"Hey, it's all right," Harry gently said after glancing at her face — she figured she must have looked quite pale and sickened. "Like I said, the captain got his point across loud and clear. They'll think twice now before they try to sneak up on you. Although I'd feel better if you had a knife."

"You know I wouldn't be able to use it." Her voice quivered slightly, and she cleared her throat loudly to hide it.

"You're not giving yourself enough credit," Harry contradicted her. "I'm fairly sure you'd be able to stick a blade in a guy's ribs if he tried anything. You've got the guts for that, I've seen you in action before."

"It's _cleaner_ with a wand," Hermione retorted. "There's no blood everywhere."

"Point taken; but since we have no wand to speak of, we need to use what we can, Hermione."

"I know." Hermione sighed, and brought both of her knees to her chest to circle them with her arms. "Speaking of weapons," she added, rather keen on changing the subject, "how's the _fencing_ going?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "It's not _fencing,"_ he protested.

"Sword-fighting. In other words, fencing," Hermione said lightly, repressing her grin at Harry's aggravated expression.

"We're not using _swords,_" Harry insisted. "Swords like Sparrow's are ridiculously long, they'd get tangled in the rigging. We're using these."

He drew his cutlass from its black scabbard and held it out for her to see; it was a wide blade, slightly curved at the extremity, and short enough to avoid hampering a sailor's moves as he worked in the rigging and along the yards. The handle had been carefully polished and consisted mainly of a brass basket, protecting the hand that held it. The cutlass obviously wasn't brand new — in fact Hermione knew it was one of Gibbs' — but it looked terribly sharp.

"And… Gibbs is teaching you to fight with this?" she said, her tone mild. "Like, attacking and parrying, and the footwork and everything?"

Harry scowled. "Yes, so what? If it helps me survive…"

Hermione looked at him steadily, biting the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. Harry glowered at her.

"It's actually _useful,_ Hermione," he snapped.

Hermione couldn't repress her laughter any longer, and it spilled from her mouth, shaking her shoulders and bringing tears to her eyes. Harry looked thoroughly annoyed, but he had a kind of reluctant smile.

"All right, so, it's ridiculous," he grudgingly conceded.

"Mind… your… footwork…" Hermione wheezed between two peals of laughter. "And… buy yourself a Musketeer hat!"

"Clever, Hermione. _Funny,_ even."

"Good God, Harry, you're learning _sword-fighting_," Hermione said as her giggling fit calmed down a little. "There's something about the mere word that's incredibly comical."

Harry shrugged one shoulder, the irritation evaporating from his face as he smiled sideways at her. "I've got to admit, if I'd been told a month ago that I would've to learn sword-fighting in order to survive, I'd probably laughed as well. _Sword-fighting… _Even shooting from those pistols of theirs sounds less stupid." He sighed. "Still, we've got no wands. If it takes footwork and whirling a sword around to survive till we find new ones, I'm game."

Hermione sobered up. Harry was right; the world they had been thrown into was violent and hostile, just like the one they came from; the major difference was that they no longer had the weapons to defend themselves. They needed to adapt to this world's rules and customs if they wanted a chance to ever find a way back home and destroy Voldemort…

"Anything new about the Horcrux?" she asked, automatically lowering her voice.

Harry shook his head, his face grim. "I've watched the men, I've listened to them talking, I almost got killed twice for being too nosy… and I haven't found a thing. It's like it vanished into thin air."

_Or fell in the sea,_ Hermione thought; and she knew Harry was thinking the same. They had had this conversation many times since Slytherin's locket had disappeared. It preoccupied Harry almost as much as the subject of his father.

Harry had told her about his exchange with Sparrow, who had apparently known James Potter and seemed convinced Harry's father was still alive somewhere. Hermione personally did not believe it. The odds that James Potter would have lived over sixteen years in this strange world and not found a way back home — he was supposed to be a brilliant wizard, after all — were just too low. She had kept her opinion to herself, though; she remembered too well the violent emotions painted on Harry's — or rather, the balding, basso-voiced Muggle's — face when he had stood in his parents' wrecked living room. She could almost feel the hope that burnt in him, spurred him on, enabled him to stand without complaint the harsh life he led aboard the _Pearl._ She didn't think she had the courage to take that away from him.

"Well, I should go," Hermione sighed. "Marty let me off, for once, so I'd better be back on time. You should go to sleep, you look horrible."

"Why, thank you," Harry said, grinning. "Some of us didn't get to sleep in, you know. I've been up all night."

"You call that _sleeping in?_ It couldn't have been later than five thirty when that wretched parrot bawled in my ear."

"Ah, the healthy life of a sailor," Harry said in a dreamy voice. "Hurry up, the sun's about to rise, Gibbs won't be happy to see you're not at work."

"What about you?" Hermione asked, as she slid over to the lubber hole and swung her legs through it onto the shroud.

"My watch's over as soon as Ratlin gets up here to replace me. Then I'll go get some sleep."

"See you this afternoon then."

"Yeah, see you."

Hermione waved vaguely at him as she disappeared through the lubber hole, then concentrated on getting back to the deck whole and unharmed. She was still suspended on the shroud, a good six feet above the bulwarks, when the sun rose and bathed everything in liquid gold.

* * *

"Sail ho!"

Harry heard the shout leave his lips before his brain had the time to register what he had just seen — a white rectangle hovering over the black-blue water, far to the west, terribly conspicuous in the quickly fading light of the evening.

"What?" Ratlin barked from his lower position, crouching on the main yard.

"Get up here," Harry called back to him.

The golden-skinned pirate grunted as he hauled himself up on the shroud and climbed to the fighting top, where Harry stood, eyes narrowed and fixed to the horizon.

"Where?" Ratlin said, coming to a halt at Harry's shoulder. "I can't see nothin'."

Harry outstretched an arm. "Right there. I didn't see it earlier because it was against the light, but now the sun's set so—"

"That little white thing there?" Ratlin interrupted, sudden excitement in his voice. "Sure it's no bird or somethin'?"

"Positive. Moves like a ship; besides—"

"SAIL, HO!" Ratlin roared, and contrary to Harry's, his shout carried over to the main deck, causing half the sailors to freeze and look up.

"WHERE?" someone shouted back.

"PORT SIDE, DUE WEST!" Ratlin bellowed as he swung out onto the shroud again and hastened back on the main yard; already half a dozen pirates were climbing to join him, while others rushed over to the port bulwarks and looked left and right for the white, ethereal shape.

"Out of my way!" Captain Barbossa barked as he strode up to the bulwark, a telescope in his hand. "Where's the ship? Who seen it?"

Despite the sudden confusion and mounting excitement, the question was carried off to every corner of the ship, and Harry was just about to shrink wisely behind the mast when Ratlin emerged from the lubber hole again. "Kid, get down 'ere!" he panted. "Captain wants to see you!"

"Well I—" Harry started, not too keen on being brought before Barbossa.

"Your ass down here, right now, or I'm gettin' it meself!" Ratlin growled, half-drawing his cutlass from its scabbard for good measure. Harry clamped his mouth shut and followed him, doing his best to keep his dread from showing on his features. If he was to conclude from the sneers on the faces of crewmen he knew didn't like him, he wasn't doing a very good job at it.

They hit the main deck and Ratlin immediately took a hold on the back of Harry's shirt, forcing him into a quick-stepped walk towards the cleared space around Barbossa, who still silently stared out on the sea through his telescope.

"Here Capt'n," Ratlin said, pushing Harry forward roughly. "New kid seen it."

Harry straightened up and met Barbossa's yellow eyes. Not for the first time, he thought it was a little like looking at a Hippogriff: he very much wanted to blink but felt it would be a very bad idea to do so. Indeed, Barbossa's blotchy face, marred with dozens of small burst veins, was twisted in a scowl that was anything but indulgent as he stared him up and down.

"Yeh seen a ship," he grunted.

"Yes, sir."

Barbossa jutted his bearded chin upwards. "From up there?"

"The fighting top of the mainmast," Harry clarified. "I saw it when the sun set."

"And yeh think it's a ship worthy of me notice," Barbossa sneered. "That a fisher's boat."

A low rumbling of angry murmurs rose around Harry. Something cold settled at the base of his spine. "No, sir, it isn't," he said in a low voice.

The rumbling got louder. A bead of sweat trickled down Harry's temple; he had to struggle to keep from looking left and right for a way out.

Barbossa snorted. "No?" he repeated. "Yeh doubting me words?"

"It's got too many sails for a fisher's boat, sir," Harry blurted out, speaking as fast as possible to prevent his voice from faltering. "And it's too heavy to be one. I think it has three masts, at least—"

"Good pair of eyes, you gotta give him that," Sparrow's voice drifted from somewhere on Harry's left.

Muscles in Harry's neck and shoulders unclenched as relief washed over him; Captain Sparrow wasn't particularly friendly to him, but he certainly was devoted to contradict Barbossa as often as possible — something Harry found extremely convenient right now. Doing his best to keep his face blank, he turned around to see Sparrow push his way through the crewmen, his own telescope in his hand. The other captain halted next to Barbossa and unfolded the telescope, which he pointed at the faraway ship, ignoring as usual his scowling ex-first mate.

"That, my lads," Sparrow said, his eye still stuck to the smaller end of the telescope, "is an East India Trading Company ship, probably trying to get to Port Royal." The murmuring crew fell abruptly silent. Sparrow turned around, his face grim. "It could be heavily armed… The wise thing to do might be to pretend it _was_ a fisher's boat, as _someone _suggested, and keep going until we find a ship less intimidating…"

A few crewmen exchanged uneasy looks, others were evidently trying to remember what 'intimidating' meant — but many more stared out at the merchant ship, eyes wide and glinting with greed. Harry glanced back at the two captains and found Sparrow smiling slightly, while Barbossa looked as if he was trying to swallow a particularly large lemon.

"They won't see us in the dark," a voice muttered behind Harry.

"And we've taken loads of Trading Company ships," growled another. "We got more guns than them."

"And they gotta have more stuff on board than the two merchants of last month…"

"So, lads," Sparrow interrupted in a loud voice. "What say you? We go for it?"

"The wind's with us, Captain," Gibbs said. "And the hold is emptier than a beggar's purse!"

"Aye!" several pirates shouted.

"Then would you say it's time for some honest piracy?" Sparrow called out, teeth bared in a wide smile.

"AYE!" the whole crew roared in answer; blades rang as they were drawn and pointed skywards.

"Tack the ship, full run on 'em!" Sparrow shouted. The order was barely out of his mouth that Gibbs was already relaying it, barking commands at the crewmen who scattered over the deck and swiftly climbed the rigging. Harry felt a wave of mounting excitement mingled with unease — it would be 

the first time they would attack a ship since Hermione and him had boarded the _Pearl._ And he had been the one to initiate it.

"Mr. Potter!" Gibbs' angry voice called from somewhere astern. "It's not a show! Get back to work!"

"Yes sir," Harry mechanically replied. But as he hurried to obey his eyes fell on Hermione, who had shrunk behind the capstan and looked wildly left and right, her face white with terror. Unconsciously biting his lip, Harry checked no one was watching him then hastened at her side.

"They're going to attack the ship?" she whispered as he crouched next to her.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Stay out of harm's way, no one's going to ask you to fight. Hide in the hold or something. You don't risk much down there unless they sink the ship; and that won't happen, we're stronger than them. They're only merchants."

"That's the thing, Harry," Hermione said, levelling a hard look at him. "_They're only merchants._ And they're going to die doing their job."

Harry grimaced. "What do you want me to do about it? If I hadn't spotted the ship, someone else would've, eventually. And you saw what happened just now — Barbossa probably saw it was a merchant ship but he still tried to put me down by saying it was a fisherman. A few guys don't like me much already, they would've been happy to punish me themselves for getting their hopes up." Harry shook his head. "Sparrow probably saved my neck when he decided to go after the ship."

She looked shaken, but still had a faintly sick expression as she glanced round at the crew scuttling about on the deck. "Just…" She gulped audibly. "Just try not to kill anyone, okay?"

Harry thought of the crewmen's deadly agility, of their long practice at dirty fights — of his own meagre grasp of the art of fighting with a blade. "If they're pointing a pistol at me or trying to see the colour of my guts, hell yeah, I'll kill them," Harry said, unable to keep a sharp edge out of his voice. "Or I'll do my best."

"You said it yourself," Hermione retorted with the same hard look. "They're only merchants. They're just — minding their own business."

Harry stared at her for a long minute, then straightened up, loosening the handle of the cutlass that hung at his waist as he did so. "Get somewhere safe," he said in a neutral tone.

He had already whirled around and taken a few steps towards the mainmast's shroud when Hermione's voice called to him again. "Harry!"

He glanced over his shoulder. She stood by the capstan, still very pale, her eyes wide and unusually bright.

"Promise me you'll come back when it's over!" she yelled. As he watched, a tear slowly rolled down her cheek. She swept at it with a trembling hand.

Something constricted Harry's throat. He just nodded, unable to force the words out of his mouth, then turned his back on her and ran up to the bulwark. He had wasted a lot of time. His heart beat wildly against his ribs as it sent adrenaline coursing through his system, lending a new strength to his arms and legs, stifling the scruples of his conscience, and he climbed swiftly up the shroud and onto the main yard to dive headfirst into the attack.

The _Pearl _altered her course to let the strong wind swell her sails to their fullest. Picking up speed, she ran straight at her target, which cruised steadily southwards without appearing to be aware of the coming danger. The merchant ship was starting to light up its lanterns while the crew of the _Pearl_ extinguished theirs, ensuring the ship's near invisibility in the quickly falling night. Harry was one of the few sailors who were still up in the rigging, crouching on the yards and fighting top as they surveyed the _Pearl's_ prey, whereas the rest of the crew silently got the guns ready. The air seemed to be crackling with expectation.

They were almost upon them when a bell started ringing wildly on the merchant ship, sounding the alarm, but it was far too late already. The hatches in the hull of the ship started opening to reveal the mouth of their guns, but the _Pearl's_ cannons had been ready for a long time now — and as the ships came level, the guns roared, sending steel and fire flying at the unprepared merchant ship. The night brightened with the cannons' blaze. The pirates were no longer silent; they screamed all at the same time in bloodlust and excitement, and Harry found he was screaming with them.

"Prepare to board!" Gibbs yelled from where he crouched, behind the bulwark, as he reloaded a musket. Harry's eyes travelled to the deck of the attacked ship; several men in uniform, obviously soldiers, were organising the defence — and they did so quickly and efficiently, despite the heavy damage already suffered from the _Pearl_'s cannons. The first pirates who obeyed Gibbs' order, swinging from long ropes over the gap separating the two ships, were greeted by sharp blades and the blast of pistols. Several fell into the black, opaque sea. The others collapsed on the deck and never got back to their feet.

A few isolated cannons barked from the attacked ship, but the sound was covered by the _Pearl's_ second salvo; the mast shook between Harry's gripping hands, and an acrid smell of burnt powder reached him even on his high position on the fighting top; he dreaded to think what it was like on the gun deck.

It happened without warning. The pirate crouching next to Harry straightened up, grabbed a long rope that was coiled around the mast and quickly untied it — then with a defiant yell he threw himself into the air, swinging towards the merchant ship.

"Go!" Ratlin hissed, giving Harry a little shove that nearly sent him tumbling over the edge of the top. "Move!"

"To where?" Harry asked in panic.

"The bloody ship, that's where," Ratlin snarled. He brusquely seized another line, untied it as the other pirate had done, and pushed it into Harry's hands. "At least get in the riggin' and cut as much of it as you can. So they can't try to run. GO!"

Harry had maybe two seconds to grip the line as hard as he could before Ratlin pushed him off the fighting top. From then, things happened almost too fast for him to register them. The wind roared into his ears as he flew towards the merchant ship at a terrifying speed, and he might have let go of the rope altogether if his experience in flying and diving had not enabled him to stay more or less collected. The ship's masts rushed towards him, sails flapping uncontrolled into the wind, shrouds swarming with fighting sailors.

He acted mechanically, throwing out a hand to grab a shroud and holding on as tightly as he could. His momentum almost ripped the shroud right out of his hands again; he clung to it with all his might. The brutal stop snapped his head backwards, his teeth knocked together, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He had bitten his tongue.

But he was still in one piece. He shook his head experimentally, hardly daring believe he had succeeded, and for a moment he felt lightheaded with elation — _bloody hell, he had survived! _— then he met the eye of a sailor clinging to the same shroud as he was. Right above him.

For one second they stayed frozen, staring at each other with their mouths open; the sailor didn't look much older than Harry and seemed every bit as terrified. Then with a strangled cry, he unsheathed his cutlass and took a broad swing at Harry.

He clumsily swayed to one side to avoid the blow, and as he did so, forced the boy to redouble his grip on the shroud for fear of being thrown off it. Harry took advantage of the few precious seconds his move had bought him and clung to the rigging with one hand while he drew his own blade. It wasn't a second too soon: as he brought it up, his cutlass met the boy's with a ringing clash.

Their weapons met again and again, although very few of the blows they dealt to each other found their targets due to the rigging's swaying. Harry soon realised the danger didn't lie in the lunges his opponent aimed at him; as seconds flew, he became more and more concerned about his fragile support — several times the hazardous swings they took at each other came close to severing the shroud they both clung upon. Harry was on bottom. If the rigging was cut above him, he had no way to catch himself before he fell.

An expression of intense relief on the young sailor's face was all the warning he got before the shroud jerked with a suddenly added weight; Harry chanced a glance downwards and saw a stocky, fair-haired man climbing the shroud below him, a knife stuck between his teeth and a boarding axe at his belt. As soon as he met the man's eyes, the sailor stopped climbing, drew his axe and lunged at him — at the same time as the boy from above whipped his cutlass towards him again.

Harry cried out in shock and flung himself out of the way, still clinging desperately to the shroud, his cutlass tumbling uselessly from his fingers onto the deck below. The blond sailor's axe was brought down on the shroud with a strength that would have cut Harry's leg at the knee, if he had reacted a second too late — and it neatly severed the thick ropes.

The blond sailor dropped like a stone with the lower part of the shroud, his scream echoing in the din of shouts and grunts and gunshots and ringing steel. No longer stretched between two fixed points, the shroud started oscillating like a pendulum, agonisingly slow at first, then gaining speed as it dragged the two helpless boys towards the mainmast. Harry clenched his jaw and braced himself for the shock.

He reflexively brought his legs up as the shroud slammed them into the mast; his feet hit the heavy oak first, and pain exploded in his ankles and knees as they absorbed the worst of the impact. He didn't have the time to breathe before he rebounded and slammed against the mast again, as the shroud twitched and slowly stabilised.

Something long and shiny fell before his eyes. His right hand shot out before he had the time to understand what he was seeing and caught it with the very tips of his fingers.

It was the boy's cutlass.

Harry blinked and raised his head — then had to duck out of the way again as the young sailor fell from the shroud, without a sound, and dropped to the deck below. He had probably been knocked unconscious by the shock.

Harry heard a kind of moan escaping his own lips as the shroud stabilised again; he had seen his fair share of perilous situations, dirty fights and pursuits, but none of them had occurred while he was hanging from the end of a line like a hooked fish. His arms felt as if they were going to get dislocated, the skin of his hands was torn and burnt by the ropes, his legs were numb from the violent impact with the mast, and his thoughts were blurred by a haze of panic. He forced himself to calm down and think clearly, and strove to regain control of his trembling limbs.

The upside of dangling helplessly from a severed shroud was that no one was paying attention to him anymore. He was able to slide the cutlass into the scabbard hanging at his belt without being interrupted, although he had to make several attempts to do so; having only one hand available and handling a razor-sharp blade tended to complicate things. He then proceeded to climb up the shroud, gritting his teeth as pain shot through his arms again, and leaning against the mast for support, until he had managed to tuck the rigging between his crossed ankles and thus relieved the pressure on his wrists and shoulders.

Around him the battle was still raging; to Harry's surprise, the _Black Pearl_ seemed to have suffered from the merchant ship's remaining cannons, and while there was no fight on her board several crewmen were running around to repair the damage. Meanwhile the pirates who had boarded the ship met an obstinate resistance from the sailors and the twenty-or-so soldiers on board. In fact, although the merchants had suffered too much from the _Pearl's_ gunners to hope for a victory, it looked as if the pirates might leave half of their crew behind them if they did not disengage the fight soon.

Harry ground his teeth. He had to keep an eye on the _Pearl._ They would not wait for everyone to be back on board before sailing away.

Setting his mind, Harry climbed up to the highest yard, where no fight was going on, and was able to find an intact shroud he could use to get back on the deck. As he went down he methodically cut the ship's standing rigging, as he had been instructed to; on the foremast and mizzenmast, behind and ahead of him, he caught sight of several other pirates doing exactly the same thing. Severed ropes floated in the night wind. Blood splattered the sails, shining black in the moonlight.

Harry reached the bulwark without further accident; the deck swarmed with pirates and soldiers, too busy fighting to pay attention to him as he slid off the shroud and onto the main deck, then went to take refuge in the shade of the quarter deck. There, in the frame of the door leading into the captain's quarters, he watched as more pirates spilled onto the deck, pistols and muskets blasting; the _Pearl's_ crew was taking the upper hand at last. The hatches were open and pirates climbed out of it, arms loaded with whatever they had found in the hold of the merchant ship. The pillaging had already started.

In the midst of all the shouting, laughing, and clanking, Harry's ears suddenly picked up a faint whooshing sound getting louder and louder; his instinct screamed at him to get out of the way — but he had not moved two inches when a boarding axe embedded itself in the door behind him, pinning him there by his shirt and the flesh of his shoulder. Harry cried out, more in shock than in pain, as a brief wave of panic made his heart hammer against his ribs and drowned out all other feelings. As if in a dream, he saw the white material of his sleeve getting slowly soaked through with dark blood, then raised his head again to find himself facing a pistol pointed at his face. Moonlight glinted silver on the steel barrel.

There was a single, excruciatingly long second during which Harry and the pistol's owner remained frozen, staring at each other; then Harry saw the man's rough features contract slightly, knew he was about to shoot, and without thinking flung himself at the deck.

The gunshot exploded painfully against his eardrums, accompanied by a flash of piercing pain as he ripped his shoulder free from the blade of the axe, tearing shirt and flesh in the process. He broke his fall with his good arm and acted on instinct again, rolling onto his back and kicking out with his legs as the sailor swore and seized his pistol by its barrel to use it as a cosh. Harry's heel connected sharply with the side of the man's knee, causing him to stagger sideways with another curse. Not waiting for him to recover, Harry reached for the door handle behind him and turned it, praying that the door wouldn't be locked.

Miraculously, the door opened behind him, and he dragged himself in the room beyond and kicked it shut again right as the sailor lunged at him again. He heard the butt of the pistol bang loudly against the closed door.

Harry got his legs under him and staggered to his feet, leaning his full weight against the door, eyes scanning the room he had just entered. They were obviously the captain's quarters, and had already been sacked by the _Pearl's_ pirates. Two corpses lay in a pool of blood on a floor littered with debris and shattered glass and porcelain. Most of the furniture was knocked over. Several small windows were broken, letting in the cold night breeze.

He noticed a large, gaping chest in a corner close to the door, its contents — the pieces of several lead chandeliers, by the look of them — scattered over the floor around it. He experimentally pushed himself off the door, which didn't budge. It seemed his assailant had lost interest in him, for now anyway — that, or he had been attacked by another pirate when Harry had vanished — but he didn't want to take any chances. Walking over to the empty chest, he dragged it before the door with some difficulty; the chest was made of solid oak reinforced with metal, and now that there was no weapon pointed at his head, the pain in his shoulder was harder to ignore. His right arm was practically useless.

The door trembled on its hinges and Harry hastened to fill the chest with all the pieces of broken chandeliers he could lift. When he finally straightened up, his head spun and his knees nearly gave way under him. He breathed out a curse and sat on the floor, clutching his wounded shoulder; white spots danced before his eyes and there was a rushing sound in his ears. He closed his eyes and leant his head back on the wall behind him.

How long he remained prostrate there, he didn't know. The rush of adrenaline had ended, leaving him weak and dazed. The fingers of his left hand were tightly closed around his shoulder, which was sticky with blood, and the breeze cooled the thin film of sweat covering his face and torso. He shuddered.

His head was starting to clear when he heard scratching, skittering sounds, so discreet he wondered if he wasn't imagining them. It was probably a rat — there was bound to be rats on any ship transporting food. He had seen several of them on the _Black Pearl_; fat, long-tailed rats with pink scratchy little paws. He grimaced in disgust and reluctantly opened his eyes, his left hand falling from his shoulder to rest clumsily on the handle of his cutlass, ready to draw it and slay any rodent that would try to take advantage of his weakness to nibble on his bare toes.

But there was no sign of rats on the floor; on the other hand, a door concealed as a pane of wood in the wall opposite him was slowly opening, creaking slightly on its hinges. Harry froze.

Out the door slid a tall woman clad in a sumptuous dress, made out of some dark material decorated with beads and embroidery that reflected the moonlight. Her skin looked deadly pale but her hair was dark, and spilled on her shoulders in glossy waves. She would have looked like an apparition from heaven in the trashed room, if it wasn't for the small pistol clenched in her hand.

Harry's hand tensed on his cutlass again. She hadn't spotted him yet, sitting as he was in a shady corner near the door, but she would only need to look carefully around and he would be easily discovered.

The woman held the hidden door open and, holding out the hand that wasn't grasping the pistol, whispered something in a lilting language Harry didn't know. He saw a pale, thin hand grip the woman's extended one, and a second later a dark-haired girl around sixteen stepped out of the hiding place, eyes wide and frightened.

The girl spotted the two corpses on the floor and blanched, letting out a tiny squeak. The older woman clasped her hand over her mouth, panicked eyes darting in all directions — to finally rest on the dark corner where Harry sat. She went very still.

"_Espera aquí,"_ the woman breathed.

She let go of the girl and started walking slowly towards Harry, holding her pistol before her while her other hand grasped a handful of the material of her dress and lifted it, so that she wouldn't be hampered in her walk. Harry very slowly got his feet under him again, the little noise he made covered by the rustling of the woman's dress dragging across the floor.

Still crouching on the floor, he drew his cutlass a couple of inches out of its scabbard — and froze again in horror as the blade gleamed silver in the darkness of his corner, revealing his presence.

"Show yourself!" the woman hissed at once, halting where she stood half a dozen feet from him. She rolled her r's, he noticed. "Raise your hands over your head and come out in the open. Now, or I will shoot!"

The hand that held the pistol wasn't trembling, and at this distance, she would almost certainly kill him. He had no choice — but then again, she probably wasn't the most dangerous person he had met that night. Harry let go of his cutlass and laid his hand flat on the floor, leaning on it to rise in a standing position. The woman's jaw set and he heard the loud ticking of a pistol being cocked.

"Whoa, one second," he blurted out, startled. "I'm not going to attack you."

She narrowed her eyes. "Step forward," she ordered, "so I can see your face. Hands raised."

Harry raised his left hand. "I can't move my right arm," he said, as he took a slow step out of his shadowy corner. He turned so the moonlight fell on his bloody shoulder. In the back of the room, the girl gasped.

"_¡__Cállate!"_ the woman hissed in her direction. She returned her attention to Harry and studied his face closely, her pistol still trained on him.

"I'm not going to attack you," Harry repeated in a voice as calm and soothing as he could manage. "Hell, I can't even use my right hand."

"What is a young British boy doing with a gang of miscreants?" the woman asked, as if he hadn't spoken at all.

"I owe their captain my life —"

"And that is enough to make you betray your King and country?" she spat at him, her lip curling in aversion.

At that precise moment, something heavy slammed on the other side of the door. It buckled under the pressure, although the chest that was blocking it held fast. The loud curse that reached them from the other side of the door was indubitably coming from a pirate, which meant that, if Harry was relatively safe — unless he got shot first — the women were in trouble. After seeing how the _Black_ _Pearl_'s crew behaved around Hermione, Harry couldn't keep any illusion about the fate they would reserve to the two women. His stomach churned.

"_Madre, ¡debemos irnos!"_ the girl said in a high-pitched, desperate voice. Harry scanned the room again, thinking fast.

"Keep still," the girl's mother immediately ordered. But although her voice was still steady and her pistol still pointed at his face, her whole body had tensed, and she shot worried looks at the trembling door.

Harry ignored her command. "You have a way out, other than that door?"

"Why would you care?"

"Lady, I may be with pirates, but I have absolutely no intention to see two women get killed," Harry replied impatiently. "If you have a way to get out of here, use it now."

"We can get out—" the young girl started in English.

"Anarosa, _¡cállate!"_

"I've got _nothing_ against you, damnit!" Harry said, starting to get annoyed.

"Don't you curse in front of my daughter, you filthy pig of a pirate," the woman snarled.

"What — are you out of your mind?" Harry sputtered. "You and your daughter are about to get killed by a band of pirates that will be sure to toy a bit with you before they finish you off — and you're telling me off for my _language?"_

"Madre, he won't tell," the girl said in a pleading voice. "Let's go, quick!"

"_Niña, ¡no hables Inglés delante de él!"_

"_¡Estamos perdiendo tiempo!"_

"You're wasting time!" Harry said, raising his voice over the two women's.

The girl nodded vigorously in his direction. "That's exactly what I just—"

"Anarosa, quiet!" her mother yelled at her, her voice going unpleasantly high-pitched in hysterical anger.

Harry took advantage of the second during which she had her head turned; his hand shot forward and slapped her pistol aside, causing it to go off, the ball lodging itself uselessly in one of the corpses at her feet. He saw her mouth open in a scream of rage and, throwing all ideas of gallantry to the wind, simply smacked his hand on her mouth as he drew her back hard against his chest, effectively silencing her.

"Shut up, or they'll know you're in there!" he hissed.

Her eyes widened from behind his palm, but she didn't struggle against him, for which he was grateful; he was starting to feel slightly dizzy again.

"I told you, I don't want to see either of you get killed," Harry whispered urgently in her ear. "But soon they'll come through. So get your daughter and run — they'll never know you were here at all."

"Let go of her, _señor_," the young girl — Anarosa — pleaded in a low, trembling voice. "You are hurting her."

Harry glanced up at her, then at her mother, who was obviously struggling to breathe. He hastily released her.

"Sorry," he awkwardly said.

The tall Spaniard brought a hand up to her face, gingerly touching the areas Harry's hand had crushed. "How can I be sure you won't tell them which way we went as soon as our backs are turned?" she asked in a low voice, her face turned away from him.

Behind Harry, the door buckled again. He ground his teeth.

"I'm certainly not going to boast about letting you go from right under my nose," he said. "But if it can reassure you, I give you my word I won't tell them a thing about you."

"_Madre, vámonos,"_ Anarosa whispered, sounding as if she was about to cry from anxiety.

Her mother abruptly turned to face Harry. "I may have misjudged you," she said haughtily.

"You think?" Harry muttered. The chest slid a couple of inches across the floor as the pirate tried to force his way through it.

In a brusque motion, the Spaniard untied a small purse from her belt and held it out to Harry. "For you," she said. "As an apology. I cannot give you more."

"I don't _need —"_

"Accept it," she hurriedly said. "We must go now."

Harry spat out an oath that caused the young Anarosa to jump and blush furiously, before he impatiently snatched the purse out of her mother's hand. "Now get out of here," he hissed.

The woman nodded and walked over to the very back of the room, where she opened a trapdoor that blended so perfectly with the parquet floor, Harry would never have been able to tell it was here.

"Anarosa!" she called. Her daughter shot Harry a furtive look, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, one hand fumbling at something on her neck.

"Hey, Ratlin, gimme a hand with that goddamn door!" a pirate's voice sounded from outside. "Won't open, something's blockin' it!"

"Hurry up!" Harry urged the girl. She seemed to make up her mind and tugged forcefully on a small chain hanging around her neck, snapping it open.

"Here," she stammered, walking over to Harry and pressing the chain in his bloodied hand. "My name is Anarosa Beckett."

She met his gaze, her dark eyes huge. "Remember me," she breathed.

And before he had the time to think of an appropriate answer, she whirled around and ran over to her mother, holding her skirts up as she went, then disappeared through the trapdoor. Her mother nodded at Harry one last time and went down behind her.

Harry waited until he was sure the trapdoor was completely closed, then hurried over to the corner he had collapsed in earlier and sat down on the floor again. He fumbled with the drawstrings of the purse he had been given for several interminable seconds, finally managing to open it and emptying it in a little leather pouch he carried at his belt, next to the scabbard of his cutlass. Golden coins tinkled into the pouch. The little golden chain and medal from Anarosa followed the coins.

He had just reclined his head back against the wall and closed his eyes when the door burst open at last.

"There's nothin' in there," Ratlin's voice growled.

"Then who blocked the door?"

Harry stirred and open an eye. "I did," he rasped.

The two pirates whirled about at once, drawing their cutlasses in one fluid motion, one of them holding up a large lantern to light up Harry's dark corner. Harry blinked and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden, too-bright light.

"Bloody hell, kid," Ratlin said. "You hurt?"

"My shoulder, but I don't think it's too bad," Harry said, tiredly scrambling to his feet. "It stopped bleeding a while ago."

"You 'lone in there?" asked the other pirate, a short, broad-shouldered man everyone called Nine-Toes. He cast a suspicious look around him.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I got an axe through my shoulder and locked myself in there before the guy could finish the job."

Nine-Toes snorted scornfully. "Next time, if you don't have the guts to rip the guy open, just stay on the _Pearl _to clean up the birds' shit, yeah?"

"Give him a break, Nine-Toes, I saw him at work, he did a fine job in the riggin'," Ratlin said. "Here, let's go back to the _Pearl_."

"Go with the kid," Nine-Toes grunted. "I'mma check again if there's no one here…"

"Move your ass, the captains won't wait," Ratlin called a last time over his shoulder as he and Harry stepped out of the ravaged room and onto the main deck.

The ship was almost deserted, except a few pirates who ran up and down the bodies-covered deck and finished off the wounded. Several sailors, Harry noted, were being embarked in small boats and taken to the _Black Pearl_ as prisoners. Ratlin walked him up to one of those boats.

"Hey, Larry, take the kid with you," he said, pushing Harry forward. "And show him to the surgeon, yeah?"

"Sure thing," Larry said. "Get 'ere, kid."

Clutching his throbbing shoulder, Harry sat inside the boat between two pirates, and proceeded to stare obstinately at his toes while they manoeuvred the boat. Now that it was all over, fatigue lay on his shoulders like a coat of lead, and all he wanted to do was curl up in his hammock and sleep. He also was rather keen on avoiding to look at the surviving sailors' terrified faces.

They got back on board of the _Pearl,_ where Harry was shepherded towards the surgeon — a small round-bellied man with a thick, tangled black beard and a shiny bald head, busying himself over the wounded. Harry caught a glimpse of a man lying on a makeshift mattress, deadly pale, and breathing raggedly with tiny whimpers of pain. His leg had just been cut off at the knee, the stump wrapped tightly in white cloth soaked through with blood. Harry closed his eyes and tightened his lips on a wave of nausea.

When his turn came, he was seated on a stool before the surgeon, who cut off the sleeve of his shirt and started cleaning his wound with a cloth he dipped in a pot full of hot salty water. It stung, and he sucked in a breath that hissed past his teeth, surprised by the sheer intensity of the pain.

"Not deep," the surgeon grunted. "Muscle isn't even damaged. I'll stitch you up, won't take a minute."

The man worked quickly and efficiently, and soon Harry was stumbling away from the stool, letting the next injured man sit in his stead. He went to collapse against the bulwark and closed his eyes.

A hand closed over his and squeezed. "Are you alright?" Hermione's trembling voice whispered in his ear.

He cracked an eye open and looked at her sideways. "I'll be fine," he mumbled. "Just… aching all over."

She sat next to him and threw an arm around his neck, careful not to touch the bandage over his right shoulder. He mechanically turned on his side into her embrace, resting his head on her collarbone, and fell asleep at once.

* * *

**A/N: That's the last chapter I had written in advance. Thanks for the reviews, everyone -- greenfly, nice to hear from you again!**

**Spanish translations:**

_Espera aquí -- _Wait here.

_Cállate -- _Be quiet._  
_

_Madre, debemos irnos_ -- Mother, we have to go.

_Niña, no hables Inglés delante de él -- _Child, don't speak English in front of him._  
_

_Estamos perdiendo tiempo -- _We're wasting time._  
_

_Madre, vámonos -- _Mother, let's go._  
_


	5. The Compass

* * *

** Drink Up, Me Hearties **

* * *

**Chapter 5 – The Compass**

The black waters lit up now and then with a lightning bolt, the accompanying thunder muffled to a low rumbling in his ears. As he drifted, weightless, according to the whims of powerful currents, a shoal of small glittery fish darted in all directions just in front of his nose, and upon their golden scales was carved a man's face — a regal profile, framed with long curls, the features set in a disdainful expression. He made a grab for one of them and missed; his motion caused him to revolve slowly on the spot, and he caught sight of her.

Her long skirt and hair floated about her slender form, dark eyes fixed on his face, a slight smile curving her lips upwards. As he watched, she reached up and coiled her fingers around the small chain around her neck, then tugged, causing it to break. She extended her arm in a slow, deliberate motion. A golden locket dangled from the chain wrapped around her fist, close enough for him to touch.

Another lightning bolt lit up the ocean and threw into sharp relief the snake carved on the locket. The Horcrux pulsed with a pale-green light, and as if in answer, a searing pain shot through his chest. The girl laughed, the sound high-pitched and devoid of warmth, her smile widening to show teeth as pointed as a shark's while her dark eyes glowed red. Harry lifted a hand to shield his face, his other hand clutched to his heart. The water around him turned cold as ice.

His eyes shot open, then squeezed shut again as his whole body shook with an uncontrollable shudder. The night wind pierced the thin blanket that had been thrown over his shoulders, chilling him to his bones; with a groan, he snuggled deeper into whatever warm and soft thing his head lay on, his right arm groping about clumsily to bring the warmth closer.

Someone squeaked. Close.

"Um… Harry? You're awake?"

There were two, maybe three seconds during which Harry wondered why his pillow was vibrating with Hermione's voice — then as realisation hit him, he straightened up with a start and hit the top of his head against something hard.

They both said "Ow!" at the same time, Harry bringing a hand up to massage his skull while Hermione rubbed her chin.

"Well, I'll take that as a yes," she said with a feeble giggle.

"Sorry," Harry muttered, somewhat hoarsely, as he looked around. The night was pitch black and he was missing his glasses, but it was obvious that he had been sleeping somewhere on the main deck, leaning against the rail — and with his head pillowed by Hermione's chest.

Heat crept up in his neck and cheeks and he cleared his throat loudly. "Where're my glasses?"

Hermione pushed them in his hand and he nodded to thank her, unfolding them with a distracted motion of his right hand and putting them on his nose. He was taken unawares by a sudden pain in his shoulder at the routine gesture, and could not quite hold back a startled curse.

"You shouldn't move your arm," Hermione immediately said in a worried tone. "It doesn't look too bad, but it'll never heal if you break the stitches."

"I noticed," Harry replied, carefully feeling the bandage around his shoulder. It felt dry and solidly wrapped. He dropped his hand to his arm and rubbed it vigorously as the cold made his teeth chatter. "H-How long was I asleep?"

"I don't know… Couple of hours, maybe less. I was going to wake you up anyway, it's not good sleeping outside when the wind's that cold." There was a rustling sound and the shadows shifted as she got up, silhouetted black against the starry sky. "It's Ratlin's watch," she said. "He said you should join him for the rest of the night and get some rest tomorrow. I'll be up at the first hours of the morning, so…"

Harry nodded as she trailed off. "Yeah, go to bed. I'll join Ratlin."

"Okay…" She bent and retrieved something from the deck. "You should take the blanket then. I have another one in my hammock."

He took the blanket from her and wrapped it around his shoulders. "Thanks."

There was a strained silence, as if Hermione was readying herself to tell him something important, but in the end she just sighed and murmured, "See you tomorrow." She brushed past him on the way, walking towards the distant, barely visible lantern swinging back and forth near the foot of the mainmast. Her dark silhouette vanished through the hatch and into the hull.

Harry shook his head to clear his mind and got to his feet, staggering a little as the soft rolling of the ship caught him off-balance. The blanket slid from his shoulders and he barely caught it in time; his hands folded over it with difficulty, numb and stiff as they were — partly from the cold and partly from the painful abrasions and blisters covering his palms and fingers. He straightened up with a grimace of discomfort and looked round.

His eyes were adapting to the obscurity now, and he was able to take his bearings and head off towards the foremast where he usually took his watch. He spotted Ratlin at once, leaning against the mast, in a pool of light cast by the lantern hanging over his head. The golden-skinned pirate met his eyes and nodded at him.

"Since you're here I'll take me watch on the top," he said when Harry reached him. "You're no good for climbing with that shoulder."

"It should heal quickly enough, it's not deep," Harry said as he took position near the mast, which slightly shielded him from the wind.

"Aye, and good thing, too. You got a good pair of eyes, always useful up there." Ratlin pushed himself off the mast and stretched. "No need for that right now though, we're going to shore."

Something clicked at the back of Harry's mind; he sharply looked up at Ratlin. "We are?"

"Aye, with what we got tonight we can spend a little time on the land. We been at sea much too long. Not many ships lately, and the ones we found had already been emptied."

"Emptied? By another pirate, you mean?"

"Nah. Poachers. Troy and Hawkins are both sailing about these waters, and they don't care about the Pirate Code." The pirate scowled. "Anyway, never mind them, we got our loot. We can get decent food, rum, women… or men, if you're into that."

Harry snorted, but his grin froze into a grimace as he caught Ratlin's sly glance.

"Wait," he blurted out, "what? No!"

"Just saying," Ratlin said. "Got nothing against that. You do what you want."

"I don't — I've never — what the bloody hell? What made you _think—_"

"Okay, okay… No need to shout," the pirate said, shrugging a shoulder. "Told you, ain't nothing wrong with that. Here, I gotta go now. See you in the morning."

He cracked his knuckles as he ran over to the shroud with light steps, hauling himself up and climbing swiftly out of sight, as if the fight of the previous evening had barely tired him at all. He left in his wake a stiff and aching Harry, shocked into silence.

It was a few moments before Harry found his voice again.

"What the hell," he muttered under his breath.

"Probably got something to do with you respecting the girl," a lazy voice drifted from the other side of the mast.

Taken by surprise, Harry whirled about and took a few steps back, his hand automatically coming to rest on his still-sheathed cutlass. He repressed a wince as his shoulder stung again.

Captain Jack Sparrow stepped around the mast, grinning nonchalantly, white teeth — and a golden one — gleaming in the light of the lantern. He leant one shoulder against the mast and looked Harry up and down without haste.

"You're respecting the girl," he repeated. "I noticed. They noticed. So either you're not interested in women or you still got delusions about how to treat them. I saw a few of your sort in me day."

"Hermione? She's just a friend," Harry said, a little more sharply than he intended.

Sparrow looked thoroughly amused. "Whatever you say, kid."

Harry had half a mind to keep protesting, but beside the fact that it would be unwise to annoy Sparrow, who was well-known for his unpredictable reactions, he remembered there was something more urgent he needed to ask; and he had to ask it now, or never. Chances were he would not have another opportunity to speak to the captain anytime soon.

He licked his dry lips, barely noting the now familiar taste of salt, before he tentatively spoke up. "Captain? Ratlin said we're going to land."

"Did he now?" Sparrow said, unconcerned.

Harry repressed just in time an impatient move. Damn the captain and his eternal vagueness.

"In such case, sir… I was thinking of, maybe, leaving the _Pearl_ with Hermione."

Sparrow didn't even seem to be paying attention anymore. He left the shelter of the mast and passed by Harry without glancing at him, one hand distractedly resting on the butt of his pistol, his gaze fixed far beyond the rail onto the blackness of the Caribbean sea. Hands clenching and unclenching in irritation, Harry watched him walk over to the starboard rail and lean his palms on it.

"Captain?" he called again.

"When we land, you go wherever you want," Sparrow said without turning to look at him. "And we take off again when I decide. You come back, or you don't. I don't wanna know."

"Of course sir, but I was wondering—" Harry swallowed. "I'm… trying to find my father, and—"

"And you want me to tell you how to find him," Sparrow completed. "Tell me something, kid… Why would I do that? I see no interest in there for me."

Harry opened his mouth to answer, couldn't find anything to say and closed it again. His heart beat loudly in his ears; the noise seemed to echo in his blank mind as it would in an empty box. He just stood there and stared stupidly at the captain's back.

"Five years," Sparrow said.

Harry frowned at the back of the captain's head.

"Hum. Beg pardon, sir?"

"Five years of service aboard the _Black Pearl_. No questions. No personal profit. No leaving for another ship. And no obeying Barbossa." Sparrow turned to face him at last, leaning back against the bulwark. "That my price. You give me your word, and I find your father for you. Do we have an accord?"

Harry's heart skipped a beat, then promptly started beating a charge against his ribs. His first impulse was to accept right away — finally, _finally,_ seeing his father again sounded within his reach; it was an old dream, a child's hope, and for the first time it was realisable.

Then Sparrow's words rang in the middle of his euphoria like a jarring note. Five years.

He hadn't expected to spend more than a few months here, and even that had been his most pessimistic estimation. Five years from now, assuming he survived the fights — or the storms, which could finish him off just as quickly — he would be twenty-two. It sounded impossibly far away… And in the meantime, back home, Voldemort would be free to kill, abduct, torture, and enslave all those who tried to fight him. Ron was the only one left that knew about the Horcruxes; and even supposing he managed to find and destroy them all, there was one he would never get.

Harry had taken Slytherin's locket with him, then lost it, in an age that had long passed by the time Voldemort was even born. He had, in fact, effectively made Voldemort invincible.

A memory of his dream flashed before his eyes and a phantom pain shot through the left side of his chest. He unconsciously lifted a hand to rub at the spot where the Horcrux had left a round scar, when it had burnt him in his parents' ruined house.

He couldn't afford to spend five years here. On the other hand, finding his father might be his only chance to discover a way back to his time. Trying to do it on his own could well take much longer than that… After all, in sixteen years, James Potter alone had not been able to come back.

Sparrow cut in his meditation. "Kid, I don't have all night."

"Five years' a long time," Harry said in a low voice.

"Matter of perspective. Tell me, do you care a lot for this?"

And from the inside of his coat Sparrow drew a long golden chain, coiling it around two of his fingers so that most of its length swayed gently with the night wind. Harry's jaw dropped in shock.

Before his eyes, within reach of his fingers, Slytherin's golden locket — Voldemort's Horcrux — swung back and forth in the lantern's yellow glow.

"I thought so," Sparrow softly said. Before Harry could say a word, the Horcrux vanished into his sea coat again.

"Captain, that thing's dangerous," Harry blurted out. His blood pounded fast into his ears. The scar on his chest burnt again, as if it had sensed the proximity of the locket.

"The men have been talking," Sparrow went on, ignoring completely what he had just said. "From what I heard you been looking for this thing all over the place. I'm offering to give it back to you — after you completed your five years." The captain's eyes went flat. "Last chance, kid. Take it or leave it."

Harry forced his gaze away from the pocket where Sparrow had just slipped the Horcrux and looked up into the captain's face.

Well, at least his dilemma had been solved.

"I accept."

"Good," Sparrow said, retrieving his usual light, lazy drawl with such suddenness that Harry blinked in confusion. The pirate idly flicked an imaginary speck of dust from one of his sleeves and pushed himself off the rail, striding across the desk with the slight sway Harry was accustomed to see in his step. He did not even glance at him when he negligently dropped the words, "You stay on watch for the night, and tomorrow morning we'll have a talk."

The captain's shoulder brushed against his as he walked out of the pool of lantern light, and the night swallowed him.

Harry stared after him. Then, shaking his head in puzzled exasperation, he turned around and took a step towards the foremast.

He noticed immediately the absence of a familiar weight against his hip — his pouch, full of Lady Beckett's gold. Stopping dead in his tracks, he groped about his belt for several panicked seconds then turned to scan the deck, in the hope that the pouch would have somehow come off his belt. But it was nowhere in sight.

Harry returned his gaze to his belt and, on closer inspection, found out the strings that had held the pouch in place had been neatly severed by a sharp blade. The list of potential suspects was extremely short.

Cursing profusely Jack Sparrow's name, Harry resumed his watch.

* * *

The stars had long dimmed to dull white points in the paling sky, when a crewman came to relieve Harry of his watch and inform him that Captain Sparrow was expecting him. Few sailors were up at this time of the day. One of them was Hermione, who was scrubbing bloodstains off the deck with a thoroughly disgusted expression, the dwarf Marty working in silence at her side. Harry waved at them as he made his way astern as quickly as his battered, exhausted body allowed him.

Despite the theft of his pouch, which he tried not to dwell on for fear he would burst in imprecations again, his spirits were considerably higher than they had been in the past weeks. The Horcrux had been found — robbed, if one wanted to be technical — and that was much more important than the loss of a little gold. Especially since he didn't have to worry about being unemployed, as he was now facing a five-year long stay aboard the _Pearl._ The price to pay was high, but in the end, he didn't have any better alternative.

Now he just had to make sure Sparrow didn't sell the locket away before the five years were up. From what Harry had heard, that wouldn't be beneath him to try.

Harry spotted Captains Sparrow and Barbossa on the quarter deck, in deep conversation beside the ever-impassive helmsman, the mute Cotton. He made his tired, aching way up the stairs to the deck, nodded at the old sailor, and loudly cleared his throat.

Sparrow and Barbossa fell quiet and glanced at him; Barbossa's face twisted in a scowl that was even less friendly than usual, causing Harry to shift his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. As one who had openly challenged Barbossa's authority, he had the nasty suspicion that he would do well to be on his guard from now on, lest an unfortunate accident should dispose of him.

Sparrow, in contrast, greeted him with a wide smile. "Ah, Mr. Potter! There is some business I would like to discuss with you."

"Yes sir," Harry muttered, avoiding Barbossa's eyes.

Sparrow shot at Barbossa a significant look; the second captain glared at him but gave a curt nod in answer, then walked past Harry to the stairs, taking care to bump into his injured shoulder on the way.

Harry gritted his teeth over a scream of pain. Sparrow snorted lightly at Barbossa's broad back and took two steps forward, his eyes on Harry, one hand playing with a kind of cubic box at his belt.

"You lost your pouch," he negligently noted.

Harry's expression probably betrayed him, for the captain bared his teeth in a smile and pulled a couple of golden coins from a pocket of his coat. "Here," he said, tossing them to him. "Should last you till we get to shore, then I'll give you some more. You don't need to have that much gold at your disposal, now, do you?"

Indeed, it was much easier to control someone when they depended on you for subsistence. Harry pocketed the coins, repeating himself that yelling insults at Sparrow on his own ship was a bad idea. "Is that all you needed to tell me, Captain?" he bit out instead.

"Actually it isn't. I need to fulfil my part of the bargain." Sparrow tilted his head a bit to one side, considering him. "Your father," he said. "You want to find him more than anything else in the world?"

Harry's throat went dry. "Yes."

"You're sure? That's what you want?"

"_Yes._"

"Good." Sparrow plucked the cubic box from his belt and showed it to him. "That a compass," he said in answer to Harry's puzzled look. "It doesn't point north, but north isn't what you're trying to find, is it?"

Harry wasn't sure how to answer that, mostly because he wasn't sure Sparrow was in his right mind — assuming he ever had a right mind — but before he could open his mouth Sparrow seized his wrist, placed the compass in his palm, opened it, and took a hurried step backward.

The hand quivered, turned once around the dial and settled again, pointing very firmly to the south-west.

"Mr. Gibbs," Sparrow said. "I believe we are changing course."

* * *

You could tell a sailor's value by the number of pirates who dreamt of hanging him from the highest yard of their ship.

Lord Beckett had been one of those. More a tradesman than a man of the sea, he had been despised by most great captains of the Caribbean; yet he alone had ever managed to enslave Davy Jones, and be to the pirate lords a threat comparable to that of the great goddess Calypso. His glorious end was still mentioned in hushed, respectful voices by pirates themselves: gunned down on his ship, the _Endeavour_, by the two most feared pirate ships of their age — the _Flying Dutchman_ and the _Black Pearl_.

Similarly, you could tell a pirate's value by the number of towns that had gallows expecting him. It was a safe bet that neither Jack Sparrow nor Hector Barbossa could set foot in any respectable port of the Caribbean archipelago.

Despite this, pirates and sailors of the Royal Navy had for each other a kind of grudging esteem — and they both hated and scorned the third kind of men who roamed the seas, the true scum of the ocean, the scavengers without faith nor law that sailed in the great pirates' wake without respect for the Pirates' Code.

Those were also called the poachers, and Meunier, at thirty-seven years of age including twenty passed at sea, was one of them. Not particularly proud of it, either, but life's life — you couldn't always choose which colours you were to sail under. A lifetime of misery had brought him on the deck of the schooner _Gull,_ as the quartermaster, under poacher Hawkins' orders. He had to admit it could have been worse. Hawkins was a good captain, an experienced and pragmatic sailor, and smart enough to avoid vindictive pirates and righteous ships of the English Navy alike. Or at least, he used to be.

Meunier ran a hand through his sparse, prematurely greyed hair, his eyes wandering over an ocean that the morning mist made livid. A dull malaise had tainted the crew's mood for the past couple of days; they didn't like the way the _Gull_ lingered in this part of the Caribbean. The _Black Pearl_ was said to be sailing nearby, and crossing the captains of the _Pearl_ had never caused anyone anything but trouble. The kind of trouble that only ended with a ship sunk and a lot of dead.

Meunier hesitated for ten more seconds before he spat a curse and set off, striding along the deck of the slender schooner while looking left and right in search of her captain.

"Mr. Meunier?" a sailor called him on his way. Meunier's head snapped to the right and his gaze fell on a tall and thin man, with a fine scar along one cheek and alert eyes, who was merely known as Jim. Meunier instinctively gave him his full attention. Jim rarely talked, and when he did, it usually was worth listening to.

"Are we finally getting out of here?" Jim asked.

"No idea."

"You're going to ask the captain?"

Meunier frowned. "Maybe I am. Something wrong?"

"Nothing… specific," Jim said, rolling a shoulder in a shrug. "You have news about the _Pearl?_"

"Nope."

There were a few seconds of silence.

"She better not find us. There wouldn't be enough left of this ship to make a toothpick."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Meunier growled; not that he disagreed, but this kind of talk was dangerous for the crew's morale — dangerous enough to lead to mutiny.

"I would know, sir," Jim said in an even voice. "I sailed aboard the _Black Pearl_ once. Met Barbossa there."

He shrugged again and stepped back; the mist blurred the edges of his silhouette as he went back to work without another word. Meunier watched him go with his stomach clenched and the taste of bile on his tongue. Shaking his head, he let out another vigorous volley of curses, as if to avert the fear, then resumed his search of the captain.

He found Hawkins standing still near the prow, looking through a telescope over the port bulwark.

"Captain, sir," he said, stopping at a short distance.

Hawkins glanced aside at him. "Meunier. What's the matter?"

"The crew's nervous, sir, and so am I to be honest. How long do you plan to stay around here?"

"Why? What are you nervous about?"

Meunier shifted his weight from one leg to the other, the subconscious motion bringing him imperceptibly closer to the captain, and he lowered his voice to answer. "The _Black Pearl_ has been seen around here lately, captain."

"So she has."

"Barbossa is no friend of ours, sir."

"Indeed he isn't."

Meunier bit back an exasperated imprecation. "Don't you think we should turn tail and flee before they find us? Sir?" he said, his voice maybe a little sharper than he wanted it.

"Sparrow likes making deals," Hawkins said. "If he finds us, his first move won't be to gun us down to the bottom of the sea."

"I hear Sparrow's not the true captain of the _Pearl_ anymore_,_ sir. Barbossa's been sailing on that ship longer than he has. And Barbossa likes cannonades."

"And Barbossa hates Sparrow, Meunier," Hawkins retorted. "If Sparrow is still on the _Pearl,_ it can only mean that part of the crew is following him — enough that Barbossa doesn't dare getting rid of him."

"Allow me to doubt that, captain."

"Well, you'll be able to ask them yourself."

Meunier's blood ran cold.

"How so, sir?" he asked after a little while. Apprehension made his voice hoarse.

Hawkins gave him the telescope and jutted his chin out at the misty sea. "The _Black Pearl's_ heading our way."

* * *

The _Pearl's_ prow cut through the morning mist, sending it rolling in fleecy balls along the hull. The mist clung to the water, crawling white and thick over the ocean as far as the eye could see, so that the _Black Pearl_ seemed to be sailing upon a sea of cotton wool. A couple of yards above it, in the clear and fresh air, Hermione sat boldly astride the bulwark and tried her best not to squeeze the aged wood between her knees. The cool of the sea crept up the hull and sent shivers up the leg that swung back and forth outside the ship, like cold, slimy fingers that would grip her ankle and send her tumbling into the depths of the Caribbean sea…

Hermione interrupted her line of thought and stared resolutely ahead. She was not going to fall. There was no logical reason why her balance should be broken. She was stable. She was certainly not going to fall.

All the same, she hoped the mist would lift soon. There was something intensely disturbing about this cloudy mass hugging the water. It spread everywhere… Everywhere…

Hermione blinked, then felt her eyes widen. Something like a hundred yards ahead, a tall, thin mast broke the mist and rose into the pale sky. It bore sails, ghostly patches of white with blurred edges, and drifted above the mist in absolute silent. There was no hull in sight. Just this one mast — wait, _two._ There was a second, shorter mast, following the first one like a child his mother.

"Marty?" Hermione called in an uncertain voice.

The dwarf was sitting on the deck, his ear level with Hermione's foot, busying himself with some delicate work on a fishing rod. At her call, he heaved a sigh to let her know she was disturbing him then lifted his head. "Yeah?"

"Can you see that?" Hermione said, pointing at the distant apparition.

Marty got to his feet with another all-suffering sigh. "See what?"

His eyes barely came level with the bulwark when he stood on tiptoes. Without ceremony, Hermione bent over, seized him under the arms and hauled him on the rail before her. As per usual the dwarf glared at her, then, all appearances being preserved, deigned looking in the direction she was indicating.

"Yep, that a schooner," he said, sounding unimpressed. "Small ship. Hull's concealed in the mist. It was spotted a while ago."

"Are we… attacking it?" Hermione asked in a tiny voice.

"Ship that small?" Marty snorted. "Not big enough to contain merchandise of any kind. It's either a fisherman or a small-time pirate. No good for us."

"Oh. Good."

"They'll probably get out of the way real quick, if they've seen us. Get me down."

Hermione complied and Marty gladly went back to his fishing rod. Hermione straightened up, glanced once at the schooner's masts, then her gaze turned back to sweep the deck of the _Black Pearl_; most sailors worked in silence, shooting furtive looks from time to time at the slender silhouette that pierced the fog ahead. Twisting her body to look behind her, Hermione caught sight of a large, yellow and blue piece of cloth, tattered and patched up but mostly clean, that undulated in the feeble breeze from the line it was tied to.

"What's that flag?" she asked Marty.

Marty looked up and followed the direction of her eyes. "Ah," he said, sounding surprised. "Hadn't seen that. It means we want to talk to the schooner's captain."

"The Devil eat me raw if I understand why," growled Gibbs, who was just within earshot. He turned to them and went to lean against the rail, right behind Hermione, who shuffled forward to put some distance between the bosun and herself. "I've seen that schooner before. I'll bet you my rum ration that this is Hawkins's ship."

"Hawkins?" Hermione asked.

Marty spat on the ground in anger. "That goddamned poacher."

"Hawkins is what we call a poacher, or a scavenger," Gibbs told Hermione. "To the Royal Navy they're just another sort of pirates, but they're not — not really. They don't follow the Code, don't recognise the authority of the Pirate Lords, and they hunt on others' grounds. Most of the ships we've come across to this month had been emptied by poachers. Most of them don't last long… Too many people out for their blood. The most polite way to treat with them is to gun down their ship and hang every survivor from the highest yard of the _Pearl_."

Goosebumps erupted on Hermione's arms and legs and she shuddered. Her eyes were irresistibly drawn back to the schooner, which did not seem to have reduced her speed despite the pacific signal. Clearly, the poachers were cautious — and if she was to believe Gibbs, with good reason.

The ships followed one another for a little while; the _Pearl _wasgradually picking up speed, and every time Hermione caught a glimpse of the schooner, it seemed to her as if they would catch up with the poachers in a matter of minutes.

Then the schooner vanished.

The crew started murmuring, and the sound swelled to a low, ominous rumbling. Even with the feeble visibility — and if Hermione was to believe the dark muttering around her, the fog was lingering unnaturally — the schooner had had to manoeuvre practically under their nose, and they had been none the wiser. Some were already whispering about angry goddesses and ghosts who would be the poachers' accomplices. Others recalled Hawkins's sailing history, and claimed he was capable of that kind of manoeuvre.

Captain Barbossa had just given the order to take down the flag, however, when the poachers' masts appeared suddenly straight ahead again. The first man who saw them was standing rather close to Hermione, and his shout half-deafened her before it was relayed all over the ship, shaking the sailors like an electric discharge. The crew got excited at the idea of pursuing and annihilating the poachers; suddenly the _Pearl_'s shrouds swarmed with life, the deck vibrated as the heavy guns were rolled into position underneath, and laughing, screaming pirates started checking their weapons.

The schooner disappeared twice more, but the men's good mood remained; and in fact, both times, the _Pearl_ found her prey again. Hermione was consumed by curiosity. The poacher ship was smaller, lighter, and consequently much faster than even the legendary _Black Pearl_. It was also considerably more manoeuvrable; it should have been able to vanish completely in the fog and never be found again. How did Sparrow and Barbossa do it?

And where they really the ones determining the course?

Hermione swung her leg back inside the ship and let herself slide down the rail and onto the deck. She made her way through the busy pirates with light, quick steps, now used to this kind of exercise, and soon reached the quarter deck where the helmsman stood. And she stopped dead in her tracks.

The helmsman wasn't Cotton. Jack Sparrow himself stood behind the helm; and besides him, head lowered to stare at a small object he held in his cupped hands, was Harry. As Hermione watched Sparrow appeared to ask him a question, and he nodded, then pointed ahead and slightly to port — and Sparrow, in turn, nodded and turned the helm accordingly.

Hermione contemplated the scene with wide eyes.

Harry was guiding the _Black Pearl_ straight to the poachers' schooner_._

* * *

Under Meunier's horrified gaze, the mist parted again before the slim, enigmatic-faced siren that was carved in the blackened wood of the _Black Pearl_'s prow.

"They found us again," he breathed, his voice rough with fear.

A dead silence fell on the _Gull_'s crew. Throats tight, the men watched the imposing silhouette, black as the darkest night, yet again emerging from the mist with the implacable patience of a predator.

"It's a curse!" someone screamed.

"I hear Sparrow made a deal with a witch…"

"That ship is piloted by demons!"

"They're using something on the ship as beacon," Hawkins murmured, low enough that no one but Meunier could catch his words.

At precisely the same minute, an old sailor whispered, in a voice grating like an ancient door on rusty hinges, "And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us… So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah…"

The men exchanged looks, eyes wide in realisation and fear.

"Hell," Meunier breathed.

"We have a Jonah," the old, wizened man said. "Why else would Fate hound us so?"

"We have a Jonah," the men repeated in hushed voices.

"Someone here is guiding this ship from Hell to us!"

Meunier looked round for Hawkins, who no longer stood by his side, and in doing so his eyes fell on Jim. He was stock-still and deadly pale, his anxious eyes attached on the _Black Pearl's_ advancing prow, his lips moving soundlessly. He was behaving like a culprit, Meunier realised in a surge of panic. If any of the terrified crewmen noticed him—

"You, Jim," someone suddenly called. "You sailed aboard the _Pearl,_ right? Under Sparrow's orders?"

The buzzing of the poachers' voices quietened as suddenly as if Meunier had turned deaf. Eyes shone in Jim's direction, hands tightened on the handles of cutlasses and the butts of pistols. Meunier saw the muscles in Jim's bare shoulders shift and tense as he looked left and right, only to meet suspicious faces; his lips pressed into a thin line, but he didn't breathe a word in reply.

Meunier opened his mouth to call out to the men, attempt to soothe the murderous rage that often comes with terror, when Hawkins's voice cracked like a whip in the stifling silence.

"Enough of this nonsense — bring the ship about, load the guns! Now!"

The men started as if they had been roused from a deep slumber, and for one second, all turned to glance at the enemy ship — then they scattered in all directions as Meunier started shouting orders, relieved that the decisions were no longer theirs to take, relieved that they could drown their fear in activity, and, despite their disastrous disadvantage, impatient to make the _Black Pearl_ pay a dearly price for her attacking their ship.

And so, Meunier grimly thought, the last hour of their lives was beginning.

* * *

"They're coming about!"

"They want to _fight!_"

"We'll show them how real pirates fight!"

"Send them down to Davy Jones' locker!"

"Death to the poachers!"

Dazed by the shouts, pushed this way and that by the running pirates, Hermione strived to get to the quarter deck and find Harry at least — and with Harry, an explanation for the current situation as well as for his strange behaviour of the past few days. No longer perched on a yard or climbing the rigging, he had spent most of his time at the helmsman's side; in fact, they had barely talked at all since the boarding of the Spanish ship. His newfound closeness with Jack Sparrow did not fail to worry her, either. It was high time they had a talk.

To her great surprise, she met him halfway up the staircase leading up to the quarter deck.

"Hey," she said between two panting breaths.

"Hey."

He looked worried, she noted. His eyes kept darting to the schooner, which had turned around and now resolutely charged the _Pearl_ despite its much inferior size.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked, shaking him out of his reverie.

"Looks like we're going to fight again…"

"You were guiding Sparrow, weren't you?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eye.

"Kind of."

"_Harry._"

"Not here," he hissed, seizing her arm and dragging her down the stairs, then under them. "Sparrow has a magical compass," he whispered to her.

"A — he's a _wizard?_"

"No… I imagine he stole it from a wizard…"

"Was that what you were holding?"

Harry nodded. "He lent it to me just after the boarding. The compass apparently points to what you want the most. Leads you straight to it."

He licked his lips, then looked again at the schooner, his face drawn with anxiety.

"And he led you straight to that ship," Hermione completed. She did not understand, and Harry did not give any explanation; he was still staring at the enemy ship. She studied his face — he was paler than what she remembered, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes circled with dark rings. Was using the compass physically draining? Or had he lost sleep and appetite over worries he had never shared with her?

She ignored the twinge of resentment that came with that thought. What had the compass led Harry to? What did Harry want more than anything else in the world?

The answer came immediately, and it seemed so obvious she wondered how she could have missed it.

"Your father's on that ship," she said. "Right?"

His lips tightened into a thin line. "And we're attacking it."

"Most unfortunate."

Hermione jumped three feet in the air and let out a high-pitched scream when Sparrow's voice sounded directly behind her. The captain had approached them without a sound, and he was now staring at the schooner with a frown on his face, completely oblivious of Hermione's near-heart attack. Hermione brought her breathing back under control and backed away from the captain, coming to stand next to Harry.

"Since I can't leave Barbossa alone on my ship," Sparrow went on in a light tone, "I think the best thing to do is to send the girl."

Hermione and Harry exchanged a stunned look.

"I, uh, I'm sorry," Hermione finally managed to stammer. "What?"

"Mr. Gibbs!" Sparrow shouted.

"Aye sir!"

"You're going aboard the _Gull_ with miss Granger here, so as to negotiate with captain Hawkins. Any questions?"

"Sir, I—"

"Perfect. Come over here so I can tell you what I want you to say."

* * *

Hermione's heart pounded in her head, louder than the rushing of the waves against the flanks of the gigantic ships, louder than the splashing of the oars entering the water, louder than Gibbs' flow of dark predictions and sulphurous imprecations. The _Gull_ was looming closer, the mouths of her few cannons gaping, her crew gathered at the bulwark and watching them approach with grim, hateful faces. She may have been more afraid in her life, but she could not remember when.

The two ships, she knew, were out of range of each other's guns; in theory, no one should start firing unless the "negotiation" failed — but what a strange negotiation it was. No matter how hard she tried, Hermione couldn't accept the idea of Sparrow generously giving Harry the means to find his father, _then_ going out of his way to make sure everything went smoothly, even as James Potter turned out to be aboard a poacher ship. Harry had told her there had been a price to pay, but even so, Sparrow went to a lot of trouble only to ensure an orphan saw his father again…

They accosted the _Gull_. A line was cast to them, and for a few minutes, Hermione forgot her fears as she concentrated in order not to make a complete fool of herself — and incidentally, let go of the rope and drown. Shaking all over, she finally was able to grip the rail and haul herself on the deck. Gibbs joined her a second later.

The crewmen of the _Gull_ stood in a solid wall of flesh and tattered clothes, faces hard, calculating, and also surprised. Most were openly staring at her. Her cheeks heated up.

"Gentleman, Miss," said a tall man in a brusque voice. "I'm captain Hawkins."

"Quartermaster Gibbs," Gibbs replied. "And miss Granger. We're here in Captain Jack Sparrow's name."

"And Sparrow can't come himself?"

"He has his reasons, sir," Gibbs said, spitting out the 'sir' like an insult. A murmur went through the rest of the poachers.

"What does he want?"

"He wishes you to come aboard the _Pearl_ with us, for a talk. We will respect the Code, of course, and Captain Sparrow said he trusts you to respect it yourself."

Gibbs' tone was both sceptical and scornful as he spoke, and once again, a murmur ran across the gathered crew. Hermione's palms were moist with sweat.

"Did he now?" Hawkins said, smirking. He looked from Gibbs to Hermione, and after a couple of seconds, she averted her gaze — only to meet a tall and thin crewman's feverish eyes. He was staring at her with frightening intensity, one hand clenched in a fist and buried in his pocket. Hermione's heartbeat grew disorderly. Could this be…?

"I know Barbossa's way of getting around the Code," Hawkins was saying. "What guarantees my safety on the _Pearl?_"

The man was still staring at Hermione. He seemed to be of the right age; his face was bony, scarred, and excessively tanned; it only vaguely resembled Harry's, but sixteen years at sea had probably altered the incredible likeness between father and son, she reasoned. And the hand in his pocket could well be clutching a wand…

"…still doesn't explain miss Granger's presence."

Hermione started at the mention of her name and her eyes shot back to Hawkins, who stood there looking at her with a slightly amused expression, one eyebrow raised and a half-smile tugging at his lips — his expression so familiar that she gasped aloud in shock, her eyes widening, taking in the details of his face for the first time — and she heard her own voice ring in the silence, although she had never meant to speak the words aloud.

"Oh my God, you're James Potter."


	6. Time

_Last chapter:_

_Gibbs and Hermione were sent as emissaries aboard the _Gull,_ a poacher ship the _Black Pearl_ hunted down thanks to Jack Sparrow's magical compass, in order to invite their captain Jim Hawkins to a negociation with Sparrow and Barbossa. Hermione and Harry suspect James Potter -- who is 'what Harry wants most in the world' -- is aboard the small ship._

_"I know Barbossa's way of getting around the Code," Hawkins was saying. "What guarantees my safety on the Pearl?... And you still haven't explained Miss Granger's presence."_

_Hermione started at the mention of her name and her eyes shot back to Hawkins, who stood there looking at her with a slightly amused expression, one eyebrow raised and a half-smile tugging at his lips — his expression so familiar that she gasped aloud in shock, her eyes widening, taking in the details of his face for the first time — and she heard her own voice ring in the silence, although she had never meant to speak the words aloud._

_"Oh my God, you're James Potter." _

** ~ Drink Up, Me Hearties ~**

**Chapter 6 **— **Time**

Eight years.

Eight years of sailing, pirating, poaching, stealing, fighting, killing, smuggling, and squandering. At sea and on the land, with that blasted sun hammering down his head and the heaps of water brought down on him by storms and hurricanes. Eight years of thinking of nothing but survive the day. Eight years as Jim Hawkins, captain of the _Gull._

And one name, one miserable name stammered out by a famished, tousled-haired parody of a woman, was enough to resuscitate in his mind the pitiful shadow of a sorrow-eaten widower losing himself in fruitless researches, burnt from the inside by an obsession belonging to another world.

James Potter. He had not recognised that name as his for a long time. Hell, he had very nearly forgotten it.

The girl was still staring at him with wide eyes—eyes too large for her pinched face. She was pale under her tan, with a forehead white with salt and peeling skin, sharp cheekbones and chin, and surrounding all this a thick mane of brittle, dirty matted hair that the sun and salt had bleached to the colour of straw. The clothes hung limply off her bony shoulders, her too-thin arms were folded in a protective stance under a chest that had probably seen better days, and from her torn-up breeches emerged two sticks of legs ending in feet that sported dozens of small cuts and abrasions; two of her toenails were black with dried blood.

He was certain he had never seen her in his life; or indeed, in either of his lives. Yet this wreck of a girl, this girl he was meeting for the first time and who looked so damn young—this girl knew of him. Of the old him.

"Captain?"

Meunier's uncertain voice cut through his thoughts, and for the first time Hawkins became aware of the uneasy silence that lay over the crew of the _Gull._ He felt on him the weight of two dozen pairs of questioning eyes. He needed to act.

In an impulsive move, he pulled his gun from his belt and cocked it. "You stay here," he told Meunier shortly. "Keep the ship steady, ready to move on the _Pearl._ If the worst should happen…" He glanced at Gibbs, who had mirrored his gestures and held his gun aimed at Hawkins's belly. "…Keep to the Code."

Gibbs gave a snort that was half-derisive and half-satisfied, and the two armed men took the time to glare at each other while the girl between them squirmed on the spot. Then Hawkins said, "Let's go."

And so, against his best judgement, Hawkins left his ship for the _Black Pearl._

He had been aboard the legendary ship before, back when Jack Sparrow had been captain and Barbossa his first mate. He had witnessed the mutiny that had landed Sparrow on a deserted island—the very same island Hawkins had been rescued from by rum smugglers, over sixteen years ago. The _Albatross._ That was it, the first boat he'd served upon, when his name was still James Potter. Strange that he would still remember the name of the boat after so many years.

He sat at the back of the dinghy while Gibbs handled the oars, glaring balefully at him the entire time. Hawkins was aware of the pistols and rifles that were pointed at his head from the deck of the _Pearl,_ like as many malevolent eyes; not as worrying, but just as piercing, was the girl's insisting gaze.

"Why bring her along?" he asked Gibbs, nodding towards her.

"Captain's orders."

"Which one?"

If anything, Gibbs's glare intensified at his question. "The captain of the _Black Pearl_."

"Last I heard the _Pearl_ had two captains," Hawkins countered. "Which one are you taking orders from? Your friend Jack?"

"That's Captain Sparrow to you, you piece of filth of a poacher," growled Gibbs. "And if you don't stop asking questions something bad's gonna happen to you."

"What're you gonna do, old man? Knock me out with an oar? Or do you count on the lass to defend you?"

Gibbs was going purple with fury but he clenched his jaw, pointedly refusing to answer Hawkins' provocation; snorting, the poacher glanced at the girl, who crouched inside the dinghy between the two of them. She looked confused and ill at ease, but she still stared at him without fear, pensively and almost—almost _fondly_. As if his face was something familiar and comforting to her. It made Hawkins uneasy, but at the same time the mystery around her fascinated him. She was too young to have ever known him…

"What's your full name, girl?" he asked.

She nodded, as though she had been expecting or even hoping he would ask, but even as she opened her mouth to answer Gibbs barked at her, "Don't answer him. Don't talk to him."

She cast at the quartermaster a nervous look before recoiling in a little heap on the floor, with a kind of apologetic grimace directed at Hawkins. He rolled a shoulder in a shrug, and her face lit up again with that unnerving look of recognition; troubled, Hawkins looked away.

Their dinghy hit the _Pearl_ with a scraping sound, and they seized the lines that hung along the hull to haul themselves aboard. The girl was going first, her gestures slow and somewhat jerky. Hawkins, who was just behind her, had to pause several times during their ascent, and it wasn't without a certain relief that he saw muscled arms reach down to her and pull her bodily aboard. He had soon reached the bulwark and hauled himself up on the deck.

A half circle of scowling sailors greeted him, their pistols cocked, naked blades in their hands shimmering feebly through the unnatural fog.

Hawkins raised his voice so that it carried over the entire ship. "So where's Jack Sparrow, so we can get it over with and go back to gunning each other?"

An excited murmur ran through the assembled pirates like a quick wind wrinkling the sea.

"Now, that's my kind of talk!" a rough voice called back at him.

The ranks parted to let through a bulky man wearing a wide-brimmed hat adorned with a soaked, filthy feather, and a sea coat open to expose the baldric crossing his broad chest. A long sword beat against his leg.

"Captain Hawkins," said the man.

"Captain Barbossa," replied Hawkins.

"Been meaning to talk to you," Barbossa drawled, stepping forward to detach himself from the ranks of his crew. "Was that you that emptied every ship in the area for the last coupla months?"

"You worried I'm a better pirate than you are?"

"Time will tell," said Barbossa, uncovering yellow teeth in a sneer. "Which one will survive longer?"

Laughter rang all around Hawkins, and the pirates moved, drawing a little closer to him. His right hand clenched harder the butt of his pistol; he drew back his sea coat so as not to be hampered when he would reach down to his cutlass. The ranks of the _Pearl's_ crew stabilised once more.

Then another man stepped through the gathered sailors into Hawkins's field of vision.

"Captain Hawkins!" called the newcomer in a joyous, satisfied voice that was completely at odds with the heavy atmosphere. A few sailors looked at him in confusion. Hawkins had to repress a sigh of relief.

"Captain Sparrow," he answered with a polite nod of his head. "You wished to speak to me."

"Actually, yes I did. Gentlemen, if you would go back to your respective tasks while I have a word with this man."

"We're not letting them escape," spat Barbossa, and the pirates grumbled their agreement.

Sparrow stared at him for a second, then adopted a patient tone that one would usually save for small, slightly retarded children. "As long as their captain is here, the schooner won't go away. And even if they did try to get away without the only man who can hope to outrun us—" he nodded towards Hawkins, "—then I'll find them again, just as I've found them four times over."

Barbossa scowled, Sparrow gave him a bright smile, and the sailors exchanged puzzled glances.

"Keep the ship steady, the guns on the schooner," ordered Sparrow, raising his voice. "If they start the fight, shoot them. Off you go. Move."

Sparrow made aggravated little shooing gestures with his hands, and the men scattered, whispering to each other and glancing back at Hawkins as they went. The captain of the _Gull_ felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. The thought of the girl crossed his mind and he wondered where she had disappeared to—but just as he scanned the deck to find her, a pestilential smell made him flinch and look round.

He found Barbossa had taken a few steps towards him. He had to struggle not to step back; for a lot of reasons, Barbossa was best seen at a little distance.

"Don't think I'm gonna let you get away with that, Jack," said Barbossa, although his eyes were still studying Hawkins. "Whatever you have to tell this poacher, I'm gonna hear it."

"If you absolutely _must,_" Sparrow sighed. "But it'll probably be impossibly dull."

"I'll put up with it."

There was no discussing to be done. All three captains made their way to the captain's quarters. The skin on the back of Hawkins's neck prickled all the way as he walked before the captains of the _Pearl—_both Sparrow and Barbossa, for once agreeing on something, had their pistols trained on his back.

* * *

When Hermione had been abroad—and by _abroad_ she meant _France,_ which, before she was thrown into the Caribbean some two hundred years before her time, had been her only destination outside of England—she had once met another English family, visiting the city of Bordeaux with the wide eyes and lost expression peculiar to tourists. There had been an instantaneous complicity between her family and those complete strangers, a feeling of belonging to the same clan, sharing the same language, culture and references, enhanced by the fact they were in the middle of a foreign city. Exciting though the trip might have been, meeting countrymen there had felt deeply reassuring.

It was, more or less, what she'd felt when recognising James Potter. He had hundreds of little gestures and facial expressions that were familiar to her because _Harry_ displayed them so often she had stopped paying attention to them. At times, a hint of a British accent would escape him, like a friendly little wave from her homeland; and she'd feel a little thrill of excitement. As she watched him on the way back to the _Black Pearl,_ she repeated to herself that he was a man who had gone to Hogwarts—who had known Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hogsmeade village, the Gryffindor common room, Diagon Alley. They belonged to the same world.

Hermione had to snap out of her bubble of excited happiness when it was time to leave the dinghy and climb up the horribly high flank of the _Black Pearl._ The mist still rolling in thick clouds added to her vertigo, and she was made more clumsy still by her awareness of the two other men's presence behind her: in her attempt not to slow them down, she fumbled with the line and nearly fell a couple of times.

"Girl, they'll never make it if you don't hurry your ass up!" someone called from the deck.

"I'm—trying," she said through gritted teeth, knowing they couldn't hear them. A second later, she gave a loud squeak as two hairy hands shot into view, grabbed her by the upper arms and hauled her bodily aboard.

"There ya go," grunted the pirate, setting her roughly on the deck. "Move outta my way, now."

Hermione didn't need telling twice. Threading her way through the tight crowd of pirates, she darted to the main hatchway and ran down the ladder into the ship's depths. The atmosphere down there felt loaded with electricity; the gun deck was packed with people, from the experienced gunners standing behind each of the cannons to a myriad of younger pirates, little older than Harry or herself, who served as powder monkeys.

Dread pooled in Hermione's stomach. She had been a powder monkey during the attack of the Spanish ship, in charge with getting new bullets and powder from the ammunition store—and she had thought she would not come out of the experience alive; if someone spotted her there, she would surely be enlisted again.

She ducked her head, doing her best to look small and insignificant, and set off along the deck in search of Marty. She found him sitting with his back against the bulkhead; he had left aside the fishing rod he had been working on all day and now held a considerably more ominous tool—a thick-barrelled firearm, like a miniature canon. The dwarf's eyes were screwed in concentration as his tiny hands ran expertly over the black barrel, which shone with fresh grease.

"'Ere you are," said Marty when she went to crouch next to him. "So that really the _Gull_?"

"Yes," said Hermione. "It's a tiny ship, much smaller than the _Black Pearl_—"

"The _Pearl'_s a warship, silly girl. The _Gull's_ a schooner. Can't have more than thirty or forty men, and forty's pushing it." Marty shot her a sideways glance, his tongue held between his teeth as he started carefully loading his gun. "You saw their capt'n, aye? Jim Hawkins?"

Hermione nodded. "Do you know who he is?" she asked. "He didn't look like a poacher…"

"Don't be a fool, you ever seen a poacher before? No. So there. Well, he's a poacher all right. I don't know how he started, but he's been 'round a long time. Half the Caribbean would like to see him hanging from a yard, but he's a slippery sort—always has the wind in his back." He squinted at her. "That true he's talking to the captains now?"

"I think so," said Hermione.

"Mmh. I still think we're gonna gun them down. Filth." Marty raised the heavy gun at eye level and checked the greased length of the barrel. "You serving as powder monkey, aye?"

Hermione gulped audibly and retreated a little further in the shadows of the hull. Marty looked at her sideways again.

"Better get your ass out of 'ere then," he growled. "Before someone spots you."

"Right. I'll—I'll do that," stammered Hermione. "Hum, have you seen Harry?"

"Potter? Up in the riggin', prolly—'Ermione, if you stay here the gunners are gonna see you. You need to get out _now_."

"Yes. Sure." She scrambled to her feet, shooting terrified glances all around her, but the pirates had not yet started screaming for monkey powders to start the terrifying dance—running down to the ammunition hold, fetching one of the unbearably heavy bullets piled up in the dark there, and running back up, stumbling over each step, arms aching and fingers threatening to pop out of their sockets as they struggled to keep hold of the treacherously smooth lead, the sweat running into her eyes and the pirates' insults ringing in her ears… Her heartbeat sped up at the memory and a cold sweat formed in droplets at her hairline. Head held low, bare feet silent on the wooden deck, she ran back out into the fresh air.

Emerging from the main hatch, she caught sight of Cotton, standing at a short distance with his legs slightly apart and his parrot perched on his shoulder. She hauled herself on the deck and made her way to the old pirate.

"Hey Cotton—know where Harry is?" she said, stumbling all over her own words in her haste.

The mute jerked his head towards the foremast as the parrot screeched, "Arrrh! A typhoon ahead!"

"Of course not—the weather's fine," Hermione muttered to herself, hurrying towards the starboard bulwark. A thick-roped shroud was tied there, climbing up towards the mast and the faraway fighting top, small and fragile and suspended at a vertiginous height. Hermione swallowed a mounting wave of bile and bravely quickened her step.

Several terrifying minutes later, she hauled herself through the lubber hole with trembling arms and her heart ready to spill out of her mouth.

"You're getting better at it," snickered a dark-skinned pirate who sat placidly in the middle of the fighting top, a pistol and a cutlass negligently lying across his lap.

"Uh—thanks—I guess," Hermione puffed. "Where's…?"

"… Potter? On the yard there."

Hermione stared down the thin, round, smooth-looking piece of wood that stretched unsupported over the void, covered in treacherous lines and ropes. Her heart sank back into her chest and even went a little further than usual, settling down somewhere low in her abdomen.

The pirate burst out in raucous laughter. "'Kay, I'll call him then, right?"

Still chortling, he leant over the edge of the fighting top with casual ease—as if he wasn't risking falling to his death by doing so—and called over to the sailors working on the yard, "Oi, Potter! Come over 'ere!"

There was a disturbance between the gathered pirates, with much swearing and aggravated shouts, until finally a lean figure detached itself and started progressing along the yard with both arms gripping the solid wood, using the thin line running under it as foothold. Harry reached the fighting top in a surprisingly small amount of time and Hermione rushed to him at once—as much as one could rush on a six-feet wide platform.

"What's wrong?" he asked in a whisper.

"I was on the _Gull_ just now."

Harry's face tightened. "And you saw…"

"Yes." She rose on tiptoes and spoke directly into his ear, to be sure the pirate behind them wouldn't hear. "It's the captain, Harry. Jim Hawkins. He's your father."

She searched his face eagerly for signs of excitement or joy as she settled back on her heels—but to her dismay he simply averted his eyes, pressing his lips together so hard they lost all colour.

"What's wrong?" she asked in turn. "Harry? Aren't these good news?"

"Well…" He heaved a sigh, then leant even closer to whisper fiercely into her face, "I don't know, do I?"

Hermione blinked confusedly at him.

"He's… my father. When I was a kid I used to imagine that my parents weren't really dead, that they had just disappeared, and that they would come back one day. And I thought it would be great, but I never thought about _how_ it would really be, see?"

She didn't, but nodded all the same. "So… you think you'll be disappointed?"

"I don't know!" he hissed again. "I don't know him. I've been my whole life without a father. When it was just a dream, sure, I wanted to see him more than anything in the world, but—"

"Now he's real, you're not sure you want to see him," Hermione completed.

"I…" He slid a hand into his too-long hair and gripped it tightly, in a gesture of sheer frustration. "I don't know."

There was a moment of silence. They stood so close to each other that Hermione could feel the heat emanating from his body, but he wasn't looking at her—his eyes were fixed on the thin masts of the _Gull,_ still hovering over the mist ahead of the _Black Pearl_. The wind ruffled his hair back, uncovering the thin scar that ran across his forehead to the point of his right eyebrow; it looked white against his tanned skin, unnaturally neat, and oddly fitting on his sharp-featured face.

Fitting—that was a troubling thought… It was like saying his tragic history _suited_ him, that it was best for him to have lost his parents and be marked by Voldemort. That it was right for him to remain an orphan, alone against the dark wizard.

Obviously that wasn't true, and yet, when Hermione tried to picture his face without the scar it was like trying to block out his nose… or his eyes… Or—or indeed, his mouth…

"I'd hate it if something happened to him though," he unexpectedly said.

Hermione abruptly snapped out of a reverie of half-formed thoughts, probably induced by the height. "Wh-what?"

"If something happened to him," Harry went on, "even if I don't know him at all, it would be still—he would be still—"

"Family?"

"Y-yes, sort of."

Hermione gave him a blank look, and Harry grimaced. "It's complicated, I don't know how to explain it but—"

"Hey, you two!"

The call startled Hermione so badly she jumped with a little scream, wildly swinging her arm about to grab at the rigging in an attempt to remain in one piece on the narrow platform.

"What?" Harry snapped at the pirate whose head was visible through the lubber hole at their feet. The newcomer glowered at his tone of voice and Hermione's knees went a little weak.

"The girl, to the gun deck with the other powder monkeys," said the sailor.

Hermione had to hold back a whimper.

"You," the pirate added with an intensified glare at Harry, "to the captains' cabin. They want to see you."

The sunburnt head disappeared from view as the pirate climbed back down the shroud. Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance; Harry was noticeably paler than a minute previously, but his face was otherwise empty of all expression.

"Well," he said, "let's go."

* * *

Hawkins looked across the table at both captains in turn. None seemed eager to start the conversation.

"So what am I doing here?" he asked.

Barbossa narrowed his eyes at him for a second before turning to look at Sparrow, who was busy drumming his ringed fingers on the worn oak of the table. At Barbossa's and Hawkins's combined stares, his hand froze—then had a curious, jerky little gesture towards his chest, as if he had wanted to take something from the inside of his coat before changing his mind at the last second.

"What you're doing here. That's a very good question. Yes, very good question." Sparrow frowned at the ceiling, a finger thoughtfully tapping his chin. "You see, captain Hawkins, I don't like your sort much. And any sailor less considerate than myself would've gunned your ship down at the first sign of you; nonetheless... I want to make a deal with you."

"How did you find my ship so fast?" Hawkins interrupted. This had been bothering him more than anything else.

"I'll get to that point later."

"Actually I want to know too," said Barbossa.

Sparrow heaved a long, all-suffering sigh. "I said _later._ I'll tell you, so don't sulk, but later. That deal should make even you happy."

"Oh I highly doubt that," Barbossa grumbled.

"That's what we'll see." Sparrow turned back to Hawkins. "Deal's as follows, James. You keep sailing, you keep going after ships. But this time, no poaching for your own benefit. Half of your plunder—" Here Sparrow jabbed his thumb into his own chest, "—goes to me."

"To us," Barbossa corrected.

"To the _Pearl,_" Sparrow said loudly, speaking over him. "And her captain."

Hawkins stared at Sparrow.

"And what if I don't do it?"

"Your ship's sunk, I hang you to my highest yard, and that'll make me just as happy," Barbossa promptly replied with a satisfied little smirk. "Eh, that's not bad, Jack. I like that deal."

"Okay, let's suppose I'm not stupid enough to say no," Hawkins impatiently said. "Why would I keep my word once I've sailed away?"

"Oh I've found your ship, four times over," said Sparrow, lazily leaning back in his chair and placing his feet on the table, one boot crossed over the other. "I can find it again. But something tells me I won't even need to. Hector?"

"What?"

"I need you to call for the Potter kid while I keep an eye on this gentleman."

Something very cold settled in the pit of Hawkins's stomach. He didn't know whether it was the mention of his old name—even though that name was quite common in this part of the world, there had been more reminders of his past in one day than what he felt comfortable with—or the captain's confident attitude, but he felt suddenly, irrationally scared.

And as though it weren't enough, when after several distrustful glances Barbossa strode to the door and barked a couple of instructions to a sailor standing just outside, Hawkins caught Sparrow's eye again and was struck by a doubt. Jack Sparrow, going to all this trouble… just for money? He didn't know the captain well—few men could boast they did—but according to what he did know, this sounded out of character.

Sparrow's eyes were planted into his, as if he was trying to tell him something without resorting to words. An impulse made Hawkins speak up. "It's not what you're really after, is it?" he hissed, low enough that Barbossa wouldn't hear him. "You've got something else in mind."

Jack Sparrow bared his teeth in a grin.

Barbossa's heavy footsteps drew closer and Hawkins bit back the question on his lips. The second captain of the _Black Pearl_ let himself fall into the third chair and glared at Sparrow.

"What?" the latter said.

"What does the new brat have to do with all this?" Barbossa demanded.

"Well, we will know soon enough, won't we?" Sparrow drawled. "Isn't there any _rum_ in this old tub?"

Awkward silence fell once more. Hawkins's heart was pounding hard enough to break his ribs, although he strove to remain composed. The strange girl, the way Sparrow had found his ship—using something on it as beacon, he reckoned; but what?—that young sailor he had just sent for, the unnatural mist that had only grown thicker as the _Pearl_ got closer to the _Gull,_ and Sparrow's secret plans… One enigma chased another in his head in an infernal dance. He was also acutely aware of the rumbling of the ship getting ready for a fight, the bloodlust and excitement poisoning the air as far as within the captains' cabin, the tension and alertness he felt in the very wood of the ship. Everything reminded him he was gambling with his and his men's lives.

After several minutes that dragged on at an impossibly slow pace, the door opened again and someone slipped inside the cabin.

"Captain Sparrow, captain Barbossa," the newcomer said.

He seemed reluctant to come forward; Hawkins could tell he was little more than a boy, which was not unusual, even on pirate ships. The sleeves of his shirt had been torn off, revealing a loose bandage over one shoulder. He sounded British, but was otherwise unremarkable—or he would have been if not for a curious, flat glint of daylight on his face. Frowning, Hawkins paid more attention and recognised a pair of glasses; _modern_ glasses in fact, such as he had never seen in this world except for his own.

"Mr. Potter," Sparrow said. "Come on here."

Hawkins's suspicions were getting more precise now. That kid obviously came from the _other_ world, as did the girl. Someone back there must have told them about him, shown them old pictures, maybe… Could it be a coincidence that the boy was named 'Potter'? It seemed hardly likely… But it had to be. Everyone was dead.

There hadn't been any time. He remembered that much. They were all dead.

His mind reeled with the implications of the two kids' presence, almost too great for him to consider, just as the boy obediently stepped forward.

"James," said Sparrow. "You know who this is, don't you?"

"I have a good idea," Hawkins replied. It occurred to him that Sparrow hadn't stopped calling him 'James' all through the conversation—he was one of the very few men to have known him under that name.

"Young Harry Potter here will guarantee that you own up to your part of the deal, I think," Sparrow went on. "Do you agree?"

Hawkins stared hard at the boy, refusing to listen to his growing doubts. It was not possible. They were both dead. They had been dead for sixteen years.

"I need to think about it," he said at last.

The boy's eyes met his for the first time—for one second—then he looked down again. His rigid posture gave Hawkins the feeling that he was torn between the desire to get closer and the impulse to run away as far as his legs could carry him.

"I still don't get—" Barbossa suddenly fell quiet, his eyes widening then narrowing again as they went from Hawkins to the boy. "Well, well… Now that's interesting…"

"Good to see you've caught up," Sparrow cheerfully said. "Now, Hawkins—I'll give you ten minutes to think this through. Not one more. And you'll stay here."

"Fine."

"You leaving him alone here?" Barbossa asked, sounding utterly disgusted. "Now Jack, the first part of your plan was good, but that's just the sort of thing that lands you in trouble every time. Only thing you can trust is a corpse."

"Oh, I've been betrayed by a corpse. Several times, even. Several corpses too." Sparrow frowned, then nodded at the boy. "And I _wish_ I was speaking metaphorically. Harry, you stay here with him. Hawkins, remember my guns are turned on your ship. I'll see you again in ten minutes, gentlemen!"

Upon these words Sparrow left the room, in that swaying walk that was peculiar to him, and without even deigning to glance back. Barbossa seemed to hesitate for a second before spitting out a curse and hastening to follow him.

"He doesn't want to leave him on his own," the boy murmured.

Hawkins's eyes jerked back to him. He was still staring at the floor as if he hoped to burn a hole in it with his eyes. The little he could see of his face was like his voice—blank.

"They both want the ship," Hawkins replied brusquely. It was easier, much easier, to talk about Barbossa and Sparrow's quarrel over the _Black Pearl_ than anything else.

"Yes," the boy said. "I don't know who is really captain."

"Sparrow was captain first, Barbossa took over the ship and sailed for ten years. Then Sparrow killed him."

The boy looked up in surprise, his brows knit together. "He killed—"

"That's the story," Hawkins said with a shrug. "Weirder things have happened."

"So when he said he's been betrayed by corpses…"

"… I don't think it was a manner of speech."

The boy raised his head to look directly at him, lifting a hand to brush back the long, matted dark hair that fell in front of his eyes. Hawkins found himself studying the boy's face avidly, half-expecting to see something monstrous, like a ghost or a living corpse, come back to haunt him. But he looked normal and unfamiliar, no different from the hundreds of ship's boys he had ever seen in his career. A thin, scarred, slightly angular face, dark hair and large clear eyes behind round glasses; a lithe figure.

A pang of regret went through Hawkins. He did not recognise the boy. He recognised nothing in him. This was what he'd expected, hoped, even, and yet…

"Who was your mother, boy?"

The question escaped him before he thought about speaking at all. Surprisingly, he did not regret asking it.

Daylight glinted off the boy's glasses, masking his eyes and preventing Hawkins to see his expression. But he heard the contained emotion in his voice—whether that emotion was anger, joy or sadness, or a mixture of the three, he couldn't tell; and that didn't really matter because what the boy said wiped all thoughts from his mind.

"Lily Evans, sir."

"Lily Evans," he echoed.

The boy nodded.

Hawkins averted his eyes. "Lily Evans," he murmured again.

Nothing happened. No rush of emotion, no tightening of his chest, no memory called forward. He tried to remember her face and couldn't quite recall the details—he knew she had been clear-skinned, red-haired, and green-eyed; weirdly enough, he could even tell what her height had been within an inch; but he couldn't _see_ her anymore. He hadn't thought of her in years. Her ghost was gone.

"Sir?"

Hawkins met the boy's eyes again. "I can't remember her," he said, and he heard the wonder in his own voice.

"You don't remember Lily?"

"I _remember_ her," snapped Hawkins, annoyed, without reason, that the boy didn't understand what he meant; in growing agitation he rose to his feet and paced before the oak table. "She was my wife. But I don't _see_ her face."

"She's dead," the boy said coolly.

Hawkins paused in his pacing. "How?"

"Voldemort killed her."

"Yes. Of course he did."

The boy looked at him strangely. "You remember Voldemort?"

"When I don't even remember my wife?" Hawkins completed. "No. He's no more real than she is. But I do know he killed her—in another life."

"_I_'m real though. And I'm here."

"Yes," Hawkins said, staring at the slim figure in front of him. "That you are."

Harry Potter stared back at him through his round glasses, the only remain of another life, another world; the only hint that he did not truly belong here. The moment his gaze lingered on them, Hawkins felt the pressure of his own frames on the bridge of his nose, like a reminder of his ties with the boy. Hawkins fought back a snort at the thought. No emotional bond, no sudden understanding, no teary recollection—nothing but a pair of _glasses_ reminded him of who this boy was to him.

"You're my son," he stated.

"Yes."

"I've never had a son."

The boy smiled thinly. "I've never had a father."

"You don't know me," Hawkins went on. "I'm a stranger, right?"

"Right," said Harry. He didn't add, _And you don't know me either._ He didn't need to—they understood each other fine.

They were strangers who happened to be related. The boy was not asking for his help, and Hawkins was not offering it. Had they never met, none of their lives would have been affected.

"You don't have to do… whatever Sparrow wants you to do, because of me," said the boy, clearly thinking along the same lines.

"No, I don't," Hawkins agreed.

He really didn't. This wasn't truly his son. They had nothing in common but blood—and blood, on its own, was unimportant; there was more to family than a handful of shared genes. His family, his true family, had vanished years ago. _They never had any time. _

And the boy… The boy was alone, and maladjusted to this world. He was wounded. He was on a pirate ship, and had very slim chances of surviving another year on it. He didn't have much time, either. He would soon vanish, as his mother had. As his father had.

Hawkins looked away, towards a window that was blank with the billowing mist. The blood was pulsing in his ears, loud, dull, but regular and slow. Ticking seconds off.

No, the boy didn't have a lot of time… But he had _some_ time.

The door hadn't burst open yet. The spell hadn't connected to his chest. He still had a move to make, to try and gain time_. _

"On the other hand…" Hawkins murmured.

He frowned, searching for words to translate his rambling thoughts, the mounting wave of his old obsession. He recognised the feeling—the fever, the stubborn rage, and always, that fascination with time, the time he'd lacked and the time he could gain and the time he was wasting…

"On the other hand," he said at last, more to himself than to the boy, "I'd hate it… if something bad happened to you."

The boy blinked, opened his mouth to speak, and after a silent struggle with himself he closed it again.

Hawkins nodded at him. "Go find Sparrow," he said. "Tell him I'm taking the deal."

**

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A/N: This one has been sitting in my computer for months. I wasn't satisfied with it. But I'm tired of seeing it gathering dust, so here it is -- I officially can't better it anymore. Unbeta'd. **

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